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No. 3. 

HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH 

GOD? 



BY 




ALBERT BARNES. 




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DEPOSITORIES: 

PHILADELPHIA : PUBLICATION HOUSE, 386 CHESTNUT STREET 
NEW YORK: IYISON & PHINNEY, 178 FULTON ST. 






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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by 

WILLIAM PURVES, Treasurer, 

in trust for the Presbyterian Publication Committee, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court 
of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON & CO. 

PHILADELPHIA. 

PRINTED BY I. ASHMEAD. 



No. 3. 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD ? 



I. The importance and difficulty of the inquiry. How 
man can he justified. 

The question "How shall man be justified with God," 
(Job xxv. 4.) proposed by an Eastern Sage, may be regard- 
ed as an inquiry by man — by human nature. It expresses 
the deep workings of the human soul in all ages, on one of 
the most important and difficult of all subjects. The ques- 
tion means, How shall man be regarded and treated as righte- 
ous by his Maker ? What methods shall he take to secure 
such treatment ? What can he do, if any thing, to commend 
himself to the favourable regards of a holy God ? What can 
he do, if any thing, to make amends for the past ? What can 
he do, if any thing, to turn away future wrath ? Can he vin- 
dicate himself before the Eternal Throne, for what he has 
done ? If not, can he see how it is consistent for God to 
treat him as righteous ? These questions meet us every- 
where, and enter into and mould all the forms of religion on 
earth. The inquiry, as illustrating and expressing the feel- 
ings of human nature, may be considered with reference to 
two points : — its importance, and its difficulty. 

I. The importance of the inquiry. 

(1.) Its importance will be seen by this consideration — 
No one can be saved unless he is just, or righteous, in the sight 
of God. Unless there is some way, by which God can con- 
sistently regard and treat us as just or righteous, it is im- 
possible to believe that we can enter heaven when we die. 



4 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

Unless man is personally so holy that he cannot be charged 
with guilt; or can justify himself by denying or disproving 
the charge of guilt ; or can vindicate himself by showing that 
his conduct is right; or can appropriate to himself the merit 
of another as if it were his own, no one can believe, — no one 
does believe — that he can enter heaven. Probably there is no 
conviction of the human mind more deep and universal than 
this, and every man, whether conscious to himself of acting 
on it or not, makes it elementary in his practical belief. If 
any one is disposed to call this proposition in question, or if 
he is not conscious of acting on it, he will see that it must 
be true, by looking at it for a single moment. The proposi- 
tion is, that no man can be saved unless he is just, or right- 
eous, in the sight of God. Can God save a wicked man as 
such and on account of his wickedness ? Can he hold him 
up to the universe as one who ought to be saved ? Can he 
take the profane man, the scoffer, the adulterer and the mur- 
derer, to heaven, and proclaim himself as their patron and 
friend ? Can he connect a life of open wickedness with the 
rewards of eternal glory ? Nothing can be more clear than 
that if a man is made happy forever in heaven, there will be 
some good reason for it, and that reason cannot be that he 
was regarded as an unrighteous person. There will be a 
fitness and propriety in his being saved ; there will be some 
reason why it will be proper for God to regard and treat him 
as righteous. 

This view, which is perhaps sufficiently obvious, may be 
illustrated by a reference to a human government. No just 
government could become the patron and friend of the pirate 
and the murderer, or bestow its rewards on one who, in all 
respects, deserved to meet the penalty of the laws. On this 
belief also, every man acts in reference to his own salvation. 
Each one has a firm conviction that no man can be saved 
unless he is just in the sight of God. A man when he thinks 
of being saved, always either thinks that he has kept the law 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 5 

of God ; or that he has a good excuse for not complying with 
it; or that he can make reparation by penances, pilgrimages, 
sacrifices, or fastings; or that he can appropriate to himself 
the merit of another. He never thinks of finding favour 
with God as a transgressor, or on account of his crimes ; he 
never supposes that his iniquity can be the foundation of his 
salvation. God made the human soul, and he so made it, 
that it never could believe that he would save a man because 
he was wicked, or unless there was some way in which he 
could be regarded and treated as righteous. 

(2.) Secondly, the importance of the inquiry is seen from 
the testimony of man everywhere. Man is apparently great- 
ly indifferent to religion, and it often seems impossible to 
arouse his attention to the great and momentous questions 
connected with it. But, taking the race together, he is not so 
indifferent to the subject as he appears, and could we know 
all the secret thoughts and feelings of each individual, we 
should find that his indifference is often in appearance only. 
There are workings of the soul which are carefully excluded 
from public view. There are thoughts, which every man has, 
of which he would not wish others to know. There are 
deep, agitating, protracted questionings resulting in settled 
conviction, or tossing the soul upon a restless sea, which men 
would wish to hide from their best friends. There is often 
a deep interest in a man's mind on the subject of religion, 
when his whole soul seems to the world torpid and inactive, 
or when he would repel your inquiries, or when he would 
seem as "calin as a summer's morning." 

A very slight acquaintance with the human mind, or with 
the history of opinions, is all that is needful to see the im- 
portance which the inquiry, on the subject of justification, 
has assumed in the view of man. 

(a) It. was seen in the investigations of ancient philoso- 
phers. "How shall man be just with God?" was the ques- 
tion which pressed itself on the minds and hearts of the 



6 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

speakers in the book of Job, and it was a question which was 
echoed and re-echoed in the whole heathen philosophic world. 
Many who are profound and patient students on other sub- 
jects, often regard investigations on the subject of religion 
as unworthy their attention. They think them appropriate 
themes for contending theologians; for disputatious and 
subtle schoolmen ; for the feeble in intellect, or for the dying; 
but they regard them as having slight claims on a philo- 
sophic mind. But would they go and take lessons of the 
masters of science and of profound thought, they would think 
differently. Will such men tell us what points of inquiry 
have most occupied the attention of the intellects of other 
times ? Will they refer to the volumes which contain the 
results of their investigations of past ages ? Will they let 
Socrates once more speak, and Plato give utterance to his 
views, and Cicero and Seneca declare what most engrossed 
their attention ? One thing they will find in all the past — 
one grand absorbing question they will meet with everywhere 
— one query to which all physical science was made sub- 
servient. It was the subject of religion ; the question of 
man's acceptance with God; the grounds of his hope of fu- 
ture blessedness. The real inquiry among thinking men of 
all ages and lands has been, "How shall man be just with 
God ?" 

(h) The same earnest searching we find still in the 
heathen world. From the recorded views, and the religion 
of the heathen, we may learn much about man when he 
utters his sentiments without disguise ; and what we find 
universally among them, we may regard as the language of 
human nature. Now there is no one thing expressed with 
more uniformity or more earnestness all over the Pagan world 
than this question, " How may we be just with God V } It 
was the foundation of all sacrifices, penances, pilgrimages, 
self-inflicted mortifications. All these things were intended 
so to make expiation for sin, or so to appease the anger of 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD ? 7 

the gods, that they who thus performed the rights of religion, 
might be regarded and treated as righteous. Take this in- 
quiry away, and their sacrifices and penances would be un- 
meaning. Take this away, and the earnestness of their reli- 
gion would soon cease, and, degenerating into an empty form, 
would of itself soon expire. 

(c) There is another method by which we may learn the 
views of the human soul about the importance of this in- 
quiry. It is by contemplating the soul when under convic- 
tions of sin, and reflecting on its prospects about the future 
world. Then there is no thought so momentous in the view 
of the mind as this, " How shall a man be just with God V* 
There are many more persons in this state than is commonly 
imagined. There is probably no one who reaches the years 
of mature reflection, before whose mind this inquiry has not 
at some period assumed an engrossing importance. With 
almost no danger of error, you may assume of every man that 
you meet, that his mind either has been, or is now deeply in- 
terested on the subject of his salvation, and that in his life 
there are periods when no subject appears so momentous as 
this. In his moments of solitary musing, or in a time of 
bereavement, or under the preaching of the gospel, or when 
remembered truth seems to come with new-armed power to 
his soul, or when the recollection of guilt seems recalled to 
him by some invisible agency, or when lying on a bed of 
languishing, this great inquiry has come before him, " How 
may he be justified before his Maker V How may the guilt 
of his sins be washed away? How may he be regarded 
and treated as a righteous man ? To those who have been 
in this state — and who has not been ? — it need not be said, 
that then no question seems more momentous than this. In 
time of revival of religion, the student in, a college loses his 
relish for his ordinary studies, and almost the capacity to 
pursue them, absorbed in the more important study respect- 
ing salvation ; the merchant loses his relish for his gains, 



8 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

engrossed in the greater inquiry how he may obtain everlast- 
ing life ; the farmer, the mechanic, and the mariner feel that 
they can hardly pursue their wonted employments, for a more 
momentous subject has engrossed the soul. The eye may 
be on a passage in Horace or Livy, but the thought shall be 
elsewhere ; and the hands may be employed in labour, but it 
shall be performed with a heavy heart, and when toil is pur- 
sued almost unconscious of what is done. The calm, fixed, 
steady, contemplative eye of the student, and the readiness 
of the man of business to leave his counting room and place 
himself under religious instruction, show with what intensity 
this inquiry has seized on the soul. The busy, the studious 
and the gay often become entirely absorbed in it, and 
then no honour of scholarship, no amplitude of gain, no bril- 
liancy of pleasure or amusement, seem comparable in value 
to the solution of the question, " How shall man be just with 
God V We need not pause here to consider whether this 
is a just estimate which the soul thus puts on the magnitude 
of this subject. We are concerned only in getting at the 
language of man himself when in his sober moments. It 
will at least be conceded that in those moments of profound 
absorbing thought ; those moments when men of all classes are 
willing to turn aside from their usual pursuits ; those times 
when the great inquiry can make the pleasures of the ball- 
room and the scenes of the splendid amusement, tasteless, and 
can loosen the hold of the votaries of gold on their gains, 
and cause the ardent student to turn aside from his books, 
that then the human mind is as likely as ever to judge cor- 
rectly of the importance of what has come before it. Yet 
there is but one sentiment then — that this question absorbs 
and annihilates all others. 

(3.) There is another consideration which shows the im- 
portance of this inquiry. It is, that the views that are en- 
tertained of justification, modify and shape all the other doc- 
trines of religion. It is the central doctrine in the whole 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 9 

system, and spreads its influence over every other opinion 
which man holds, on the subject of salvation. ' The views 
entertained on this subject, distinguish respectively the Prot- 
estant and the Papal communities ; divide Protestants them- 
selves into two great parties, evangelical and non-evangelical ; 
separate heathens from Christians ; give form to all the sys- 
tems of infidelity and Deism, and constitute the peculiarity 
of every man's individual faith. When it is known definite- 
ly what a man thinks on this one point, it may be known 
whether he is a Papist, or a Protestant \ a Christian or an 
infidel ; a heathen or a friend of the Saviour ; a formalist or 
a devoted servant of God. Luther did not say too much 
when he said of this doctrine of justification, that it was the 
article on which depended the permanency or ruin of the 
church, and with a sagacity equal to that of Talleyrand, when 
from a very slight matter he predicted that the throne of 
France would be overturned, Luther saw that the doctrine 
of justification would meet every corruption of the Papacy 
and eventually overturn the system. The fabric of the 
Papacy is an ingenious attempt, originated and arranged 
under the auspices of a higher than a human intellect, though 
fallen, to delude man with the belief, that there is some 
other way by which he may be justified with God, than by 
faith in the Saviour. The whole system of heathenism is an 
attempt to answer the question, "How man maybe justified 
with God V y The systems of infidels, and of men who are de- 
pending on their own morality, or relying on penances and pil- 
grimages, are another answer which is given to the question. 
If the observations now made are correct, it will be 
conceded that this doctrine has an importance which cannot 
be over-estimated. If it be so, that no man can be saved who 
is not justified in the sight of God ; that the race every- 
where, in the anxious inquiry of sages, in the systems and 
sacrifices of the heathen, and in the deep working of the 
soul rendering every other pursuit tasteless and valueless, 



10 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

has shown its sense of its importance, and that it spreads its 
influence over every form of belief, the importance of the 
inquiry will be admitted. 

II. The second point proposed to be noticed as prepara- 
tory to a consideration of the subject of justification is, — 
The difficulty of the inquiry. 

What is the difficulty ? Why has the human mind been 
so much perplexed in relation to it ? Why may not God 
admit man to heaven, and regard and treat him as if he were 
righteous ? These questions can be answered in a single re- 
mark, and the whole difficulty may then be seen at a glance. 
It is, that man is in fact not righteous. The difficulty is to 
see how God can regard and treat him as if he were. It is 
easy to see how if he were righteous, God could treat him 
so, or how he could treat him as a sinner, that is, according 
to his real character. But how shall he treat him different- 
ly from what he deserves, or as if he had a character which 
it is known he has not ? Whatever theories may be em- 
braced by men, or whatever opinions may be entertained on 
the subject of religion, it is true as a matter of fact that 
these perplexities have been felt by men, that they have 
given rise to grave and agitating questions, and that man 
has not felt that he could give a solution that was wholly 
satisfactory. There is no inquiry which has taken hold on 
man everywhere, under all forms of government and opinion, 
and in every climate and amidst every degree of progress, 
which has not had some real foundation in the nature of 
things. The race, in its soberest moments, does not busy 
itself with trifles, and especially will not allow itself to be 
troubled and tortured by questions that are of no importance. 
The difficulty which has been felt on this subject is therefore 
not imaginary, but from the fact that the inquiry has been 
so universal, and so beyond the human powers satisfactorily 
to explain, it is clear that God meant that it should be re- 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 11 

garded by man as a point to be solved only by divine reve- 
lations. The real difficulties in the case, and the state of the 
human mind in regard to them, may be illustrated by the 
following observations : — 

(1.) There was the impossibility of man's vindicating 
himself from the charges of guilt brought against him. If 
he could do this, all would be clear, for God will not con- 
demn the innocent. But it could not be done. These 
charges were brought in such a way, and enforced in such a 
manner that man could not so meet them as to escape the 
conviction of their truth. They are brought, where there is 
a revelation by God himself in his word ; and where there 
is not, as well as where there is, by conscience. Man is told 
in the word of God that he is a sinner ; his recollection of 
what he has done, assures him that it is so; the dealings 
of God with him, convince him that there must be some 
cause of alienation between himself and his Maker; and 
every sick bed, and every grave, and every apprehension of 
future wrath, confirms the conviction. If man were to un- 
dertake to convince himself that he is not held to be guilty, 
the argument could not be derived from the dealings of God 
with him in this world. It is not easy for a man to satisfy 
himself that he is not a sinner, when the earth is strewed 
with the dying and the dead ; when his best friends are cut 
down all around him ; when he himself is to die, and when 
he is so made that he cannot but tremble at the apprehen- 
sion of the judgment. If one wished to construct an argu- 
ment to prove that he is not a sinful man, and that man can 
be just with God, he would desire to be removed to some 
world where he would not see so many things that seem to 
be mementoes of human depravity, and so many evidences 
that his Creator regards him and his fellow-men as guilty. 
Men have everywhere felt this difficulty. There is no one 
sentiment in which men more uniformly agree than in this. 
Every man regards every other man as a sinner, and puts 



12 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

himself on his defence against him, for his locks, and bolts, 
and notes, and bonds, and securities all demonstrate this; 
and every man knows that he himself also is a sinner. 
There is nothing of which he is better apprised, nothing he 
believes more firmly than this. There is not a living man 
that could bear the revelation of his thoughts to others for a 
single day, and that not merely because others have no right 
to know what is passing in his mind, but because he feels 
that they are wrong. Confusion, blushes, shame, and 
shrinking would diffuse themselves over every assembly, and 
through every crowded thoroughfare in the streets of a great 
city, and in every lonely path where strangers should meet 
strangers, if each one knew that another was surveying 
closely the thoughts of his heart, and saw what was passing 
there. If every man felt that his bosom were so trans- 
parent that all the workings of his soul could be observed 
by others, no one would venture out of his chamber; no one 
would move along the pathways where he might encounter 
a fellow man; the thronged places of business would be 
deserted, and our great and crowded cities would become 
like the cities of the dead. No man would venture, at mid- 
night on the mountain top, or on the lonely prairie, to stretch 
out his hands to Heaven, and say, " I am pure as the stars 
that shine upon me, or as the God that made thein." So 
universal is the consciousness of guilt, and so certain does 
every man feel, in his sober moments, that he cannot vindi- 
cate himself before God. How then shall man be just with 
God? 

(2.) There is the difficulty which must have been early 
apparent to men, and which any one can see now, if the 
guilty were saved, or if they were regarded and treated as 
righteous. How could this be done ? Man does not do it 
himself, in reference to those who are guilty, and how could 
God? No father feels that it would be proper to regard 
and treat an offending child as if he were obedient; no 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 13 

friend acts thus toward one who professes friendship ; and 
no government acts thus toward its subjects. All order 
and happiness in a family would cease at once if this were 
to occur; and government on earth would be unknown. 
There is a great principle of eternal justice which seems 
engraved in the convictions of the soul, that every one ought 
to be treated according to character, and that there ought 
to be a difference in the divine dealings toward the good and 
the evil. But what if God treats all alike ? What if he 
makes no distinction in regard to character ? What if he 
admits all to favour; punishes no one, and rewards piety 
and impiety, fraud and honesty, vice and virtue, reverence 
and blasphemy, alike with the same immortal crown? 
What if the murder of the innocent, and the highest deed 
of benevolence were equally a passport to his favour? 
What if he met the licentious, and those of virgin purity 
of soul, when they came before him, with the same smile 
of approbation ? Would not the universe feel that he was 
regardless of character? Would it be possible to correct 
the impression? 

But it will be said, perhaps, might he not pardon the 
guilty, and the fact of pardon constitute a ground of dis- 
tinction which the universe would understand? True, if it 
would be proper to pardon in this state of things. But are 
there no difficulties attending the subject of pardon? Can 
it always be done ? Can it be done to an unlimited extent ? 
Does a father feel that it is safe and best to adopt it as a 
universal rule, that he will forgive all his children as often 
as they may choose to offend him, and to do it without any 
condition ? Any one may easily see the difficulty on this 
subject. There are thousands of men confined in peni- 
tentiaries ; many of them are desperate men, regardless of 
all the laws of heaven and earth. Would it be felt to be 
safe or proper at once to open their prison doors ? Who 
would wish to be in the neighbourhood when they should 



14 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

be turned impenitent and unreformed upon the world? If 
the community is scarcely safe now with all the precautions 
and guards of justice, what would it be if they were all 
withdrawn? These difficulties must occur to anyone when 
he asks the question, How can the guilty be justified? 

(3.) It is a matter of simple fact that men have felt this 
difficulty, and the methods to which they have resorted to 
devise some way of justification, show how perplexing the 
subject has been to the human mind. We may learn some- 
thing of the embarrassments which men feel, by the devices 
to which they resort to overcome them. Look then for a 
moment at some of the methods to which men have been 
driven in order to answer the question satisfactorily, How 
can man be just with God? 

(a) One class have denied the charge of guilt, and 
have endeavoured to convince themselves that they are 
righteous and that they may safely trust to their own work 3 
for salvation. If this could be done, all would be well. 
But the mass of men have felt that there are insuperable 
difficulties in the way of doing this. We shall hereafter 
inquire whether it is practicable. 

(b) Many have endeavoured to excuse themselves for 
their conduct, and thus to be justified before God. They 
are sensible that all is not right, but if they can find a 
satisfactory excuse, that is, if they can show that they had 
a right to do what they have done, or could not help it, 
they feel that they would not be condemned. And they 
are right in this. To do it they lay the blame on Adam, or 
on ungovernable passions, or on a fallen nature, or on the 
power of temptation, or on the government of God. They 
attempt to show that they could do no otherwise than they 
have done; that is, they have a right to do it in the circum- 
stances, and of course are not to blame. We shall inquire 
hereafter whether this position can be made out. 

(c) Many have endeavoured to make expiation by blood, 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 15 

and have sought to be justified in this way. Hence the 
sacrifices of the heathen — the flowing blood and burning 
bodies of lambs, and goats, and bullocks, and prisoners of 
war, and slaves, and of children — offered to appease the 
anger of the gods. Thousands of altars smoke in this 
attempt, and the whole heathen world pants and struggles 
under the difficulty of the inquiry, How may a guilty con- 
science be justified with God ? 

(d) Many have sought the same thing by pilgrimages 
and penances; by maceration and scourging; by unnatural 
and painful postures of the body; and by wounds which 
their own hands have inflicted on themselves. The victim 
of superstition in India lies down beneath the car of his idol, 
or fastens hooks in his flesh, or holds his arm in one posture 
till it is rigid. Simeon in Syria, on an elevated column, 
spent his years in misery. Antony in Egypt went and lived 
in a cave, and Benedict originated the monastic system in 
Italy. Mecca is crowded by pilgrims seeking for righteous- 
ness by a visit to the tomb of the prophet; and the shrines 
inclosing the bones of the saints are encompassed by throngs 
in Italy for a similar purpose ; the garment of hair frets and 
tortures the body, and the sound of the lash is heard in the 
cells of the convent, and the whole system of penance 
and self-inflicted torture all over the world is just a com- 
mentary on the question, How shall man be justified with 
God? ' 

(e) To crown all this, another device has been resorted to. 
It has been held that there were extraordinary merits of 
saints who lived in former times; that they performed 
services beyond what were required, that these merits were 
garnered up as a sacred treasure, and are placed at the 
disposal of the head of the papal community, to be distributed 
at his pleasure to those who are conscious of guilt ; and this 
is one of the answers given to the question, How shall man 
be justified with God ? 



16 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

From these remarks it will be seen what men have thought 
of the difficulty of this question. In these various ways, 
human nature speaks out and reveals what is passing in the 
bosom. They are the methods to which men have resorted 
as the best answer which they can give to this inquiry. 
To see the real difficulty, however, we should be able to go 
down into the depths of the soul, to guage all the agonies 
of guilty consciences; to look at the woes and sorrows which 
men are willing to endure that they may be justified, and 
then to see how one and all of these plans utterly fail ; how 
they leave the conscience just as defiled as it was before, the 
propensities to evil unchecked, the grave as terrific as ever, 
and the judgment-bar as full of horrors. When we stand 
and survey these things, we ask with deep concern whether 
any one of these is the way by which man can be justified 
with God ? If not, is there any other way, or is there none ? 

2. Man cannot justify himself hy denying or disproving 
the charge of guilt. 

The term justify is a legal term, but it is also in common 
use, and is intelligible to all. An illustration or two will 
make it plain, and will lay the foundation for the train of 
thought which will be pursued in this section. A man is 
charged with murder. He may put his defence on one 
of two grounds. He may either deny the fact of killing; 
or admitting that, he may show that he had a right to 
do it, or is excusable for it. If the fact of killing is not 
made out against him, of course he is just in the sight of 
the law, and is acquitted. Or, if the fact be made out or 
admitted, he may take the ground either that he did it in 
self-defence, or that it was done under such a state of mental 
derangement as to destroy responsibility — and he is acquitted. 
He had no " malice prepense." He intended no murder; 
he committed none; and the law does not hold him guilty 
of the charge. A man is charged with trespass. He takes 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 17 

a similar ground of defence. He denies the fact, or main- 
tains that he had a right to do what he has done. He sets 
up a claim to a " right of way "over a field which his neigh- 
bour owns, and having established that, he is acquitted, or 
is held to have done no more than he had a right to do in 
the case. He is a just man in the eye of the law, and may 
pursue his own business, enjoy the immunities of a good 
citizen, the honours of an unsullied name, and protection in 
his rights unmolested. It may be added here, that there 
is no other way by which a man can justify himself in the 
sight of the law. He could not do it by admitting the fact 
of the trespass, and by paying the fine, or making compen- 
sation for the injury done ; for, though he might be discharged, 
yet this would be no justification of what was done, and 
would do nothing toward showiog that he was right in doing 
it. It does not make a wrong right, either, to intend before- 
hand to pay for the mischief, or to make amends for it after 
the deed is done. This remark will be used hereafter in 
examining the attempts which men have made to justify 
themselves. 

Now if man attempt to justify himself before his Maker, 
he must take one of the grounds referred to. He must 
either deny the charge brought against him; or, admitting 
the facts in the case, he must show that he had a right to 
do what he has done. If he can do either of these, he will 
be justified, for God does not condemn the innocent. We 
will suppose then the case of a man arraigned at the bar of 
his Maker, as we all soon shall be, on trial with reference to 
eternity. There are two things that occur to us at once. 
What is the charge against him? What is the defence 
which he sets up ? If there is no charge, he is justified of 
course. If his defence is valid, he will be acquitted. 

It is necessary then, first to look at the charge which is 

brought against man. 

The charge is, that he has violated the law of his Maker, 

2* 



18 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

or is a transgressor. It is that of apostacy or revolt from 
God ; the entire failure to keep his laws ; living constantly 
in the neglect of acknowledged duty; and the habitual com- 
mission of known sins. It may be assumed here that every 
reader of this Tract is sufficiently familiar with the Bible to 
know the nature of these charges, without their being specified 
in detail. No one trained in a Christian community can be 
ignorant of the account of our race which the Bible gives. 
These charges of guilt do not make the impression which 
they ought, for these reasons : because we are so familiar with 
them; because others are implicated with us; because we 
do not cordially believe them. Many a man reads the account 
of human nature in the Bible without supposing there is 
any thing serious in the matter, or much fitted to trouble 
him. There is many a one who would pass a sleepless night, 
if he knew there was a charge of petty larceny against him, 
which would bring him into court to-morrow, who has no 
trouble at the charge of total apostacy and utter revolt brought 
against him by God. There is many a one who would be in 
the deepest consternation if he knew that his name was be- 
fore a grand jury in some such connection as his # conscience 
could easily suggest, who has no alarm at the thought of the 
"Grand Assize;" and no dread of the formidable catalogue 
of crimes drawn up against him in the secrecy of the divine 
Councils. A few remarks will demonstrate that these charges 
against man in the Bible ought to make an impression and 
that men ought to be willing to look at them. A case or 
two may be supposed which will show how men ought 
to be -affected in view of such charges brought by the 
Creator. The case of an officer in a bank may be referred 
to. He has been long there, or in other stations in public 
life, and has gained a character compared with which all the 
gold that the vaults of the bank could contain would be 
worthless as the sand. Suddenly, charges are brought against 
him of unfaithfulness to his trust. They come from quarters 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 19 

worthy of his attention; are of such a source as inevitably 
to gain the ear of the community; are such that his family 
must know of them; are sustained by such circumstances 
of actual losses in the bank as to render the charge credible, 
and are of such a character as to make it necessary for him 
to leave his post, disgraced perhaps forever. Now it is not 
necessary to suppose that these accusations are true. All 
that is designed is to show the effect which charges of guilt 
from a respectable quarter usually have on a man's mind. 
But suppose he secretly knew they were all true, how could 
his conduct be explained, if he was utterly indifferent and 
unconcerned ? 

In regard to the charges which are brought against man 
a few remarks may be made here, showing that they should 
be allowed to make an impression on the mind. 

(1 .) One respects the source from whence they come. They 
are professedly the charges of our Maker and final Judge. 
They are those on which we are to be tried at his bar, and in 
reference to which our destiny is to be determined. 

(2.) They are the most fearful of all accusations which can 
be brought against a creature. No crime can be equal to that 
of being an enemy of God; and no offence against human 
society can equal in enormity and ill desert, the crimes of 
which man is charged against his Maker. 

(3.) The charge extends to every human being. No excep- 
tion is made in favour of youth, beauty, rank, or blood ; none 
in favour of the amiable, the honest, or the moral ; none in fa- 
vour of those who have endeavoured to wipe away the accusa- 
tion by their own good living. It is not indeed charged that 
one is as bad as another, or that any one is as bad as he can be, 
but it is that every one is guilty of violating the law of God, 
and is held to be such a sinner that he cannot save himself. 

(4.) It is charged that each and every one is of such a cha- 
racter that the eternal pains of hell would be an adequate re- 
compense for his crime. He is held to be under condemnation 



20 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD ? 

and to be justly exposed to punishment that shall be severe in 
the extremest degree, unmitigated and everlasting. Each one 
is held to be such an evil-doer that it would be wrong for 
God to admit him to heaven as he is, but not wrong to con- 
sign him to unending wo. It is important not to disguise 
any thing about this, or to seek to hide it by soft names. 
The robber is deemed worthy of the penitentiary ; the mur- 
derer is regarded as deserving death on the gibbet ; and in 
like manner it is held in the charges brought against man, 
and the threatenings appended to them, that every man de- 
serves the pains of everlasting death, and that if he should 
receive what is properly due to him, he would be cast off 
from God, and punished forever. Such is the nature of the 
charges against man. On these he is held guilty ; on these 
he will be arraigned. The Bible has two aspects. It reveals 
a way of pardon ; but it is also the grand instrument of in- 
dictment against man. It is designed to reveal his character ; 
to record his crimes; to overwhelm him with the conviction 
of guilt; and be the rule of judgment on the final day. The 
question then arises, now to be considered, whether if these 
are the charges against man, he can vindicate or justify him- 
self. It has been already remarked that there are but two 
grounds to be taken in such a vindication. One is, to deny 
the facts charged on man; the other is, if the facts be ad- 
mitted, for him to show that he had a right to do as he has 
done. There is nothing else that can be conceived of in 
the case, to be done by him, unless it were to attempt to make 
expiation or reparation by extraordinary merit; by penance 
or by sacrifice; though this would not justify him for what 
he had done, any more than a man's paying a fine made it 
right for him to put out his neighbour's eye, or burn his 
house. If neither of these things can be done, it will follow 
that man cannot be justified by his own righteousness. These 
points will now be considered in their order. The first is 
that man cannot deny the truth of the charges brought against 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 21 

him. In support of this the following considerations may 
be urged : — 

(1.) The source whence these charges come. They are 
made by God himself. It is assumed here that the Bible is 
true, and the argument will be conducted on that assumption. 
In another part of this Tract it will be shown that it is equally 
impossible to deny the main facts, whether the Bible be true 
or false. The position now is that the sinner cannot take 
the ground that God has mistaken the facts about man, or 
that he has designedly brought a false accusation. It surely 
cannot be necessary to go into an argument to prove this, 
but an illustration or two may be allowed. 

(a) One is that it is impossible for God to mistake on this 
subject. Men often do mistake in reference to character 
and conduct. Charges are often falsely brought and men 
are often condemned as guilty, on false accusations. This 
may be intentionally done; or judges and jurors may be 
mistaken; or witnesses may be suborned to sustain the ac- 
cusation, or those needful for the defence may be absent, or 
a combination of circumstances which no human sagacity 
can control may seem to confirm the charge of guilt against 
the innocent. But obviously no such mistake can occur in 
relation to the charges brought in the Bible against man, nor 
can man set up a vindication of himself on the ground that 
his Maker has erred in reference to the facts alleged. 

(b) As little can he urge that the accusation has been 
overdrawn ; that a degree of guilt has been charged such as 
the facts would not justify ; or that there has been an inter- 
mingling of prejudice or passion that has given a colouring to 
the charge, and that a calmer view may modify these accusa- 
tions. We can easily admit that such things may occur 
among men. Judges and jurors are liable to the same pas- 
sions as other men, and in a time of popular excitement it 
may happen that the contagion may reach the bench and the 
jury-room, and hence the laws are careful that the adminis- 



22 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD ? 

tration of justice shall proceed with as much calmness and 
coolness as possible. It may happen also that false charges 
are brought against men because they are obnoxious to those 
in power. Many a one who has stood in the way of the pur- 
poses of a tyrant, has been removed under the form of law 
to gratify the passions of such a man, and many a pure name 
has been covered with infamy by the malignity of those in 
authority. But it is not needful to show that none of these 
things can be alleged by man in regard to the charges 
brought against him by his Maker. It cannot be pretended 
that Grod has been hurried into these charges under the in- 
fluence of passion, or that man is obnoxious to his purposes 
and that he would have him removed. The charges are 
made with the utmost deliberation. They are made by the 
most benevolent Being in the universe ) by one who can have 
no pleasure in finding out proofs of guilt ; by one who, from 
his nature, is disposed to make every possible allowance for 
weakness and infirmity; by one who sees better than man 
can state it, every thing that can be said in his defence ; 
by one more disposed than any human being ever was to do 
justice to all that is amiable and pure. If man wishes to 
find a friend who will be kind to his infirmities, and do 
justice to him when the world does him wrong, he can find 
no such friend as Grod. 

(c) It may be added here that the charge is one that no 
denial affects. It has been deliberately made, and is that 
on which we are to be tried. We may deny it, or disregard 
it, but it is not affected. Whatever we may choose to think 
of it, it does not change the estimate which our Maker affixes 
to our character any more than the private views of a prisoner 
at the bar modify the estimate of the judge and jury. God 
will pronounce sentence on us according to his own estimate 
of our character, and the only security which we can have 
that we shall not meet with condemnation, will be in the fact 
that our character will be such that he will regard it as not 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 23 

proper to condemn us. But that cannot be by attempting 
to deny the truth of the charge which he brings against us, 
or by holding him either to be malignant or mistaken. 

(2.) To show that man cannot deny the truth of that 
which is alleged against him as a violator of the law, it may be 
observed, secondly, that so far from obeying the perfect law 
of God, he has failed of yielding perfect obedience to the 
very lowest rules of morality. The standard at which man 
aims is in general low enough, and one which it might be 
supposed was sufficiently accommodating to satisfy one who 
wished to save himself by his own righteousness. That 
standard is, at any rate, at an immeasurable distance from the 
holy law of God. Yet let a man take any standard of con- 
duct which he pleased, and he would fail in all attempts to 
show that he had always been conformed to it. Who would 
undertake to prove, before any tribunal that could take any 
cognizance of the motives, the thoughts, the words as well 
as the outward conduct, that he had always been honest, true, 
kind, chaste, or courteous? Who would attempt to prove, 
that he had on no occasion failed in his duty in the 
tenderest relations of life ? What child is there that 
would undertake to prove, that he has never failed in 
his duty to his father or his mother; that he has always 
been as respectful, obedient and grateful as he ought to 
have been ? Is there no compunction when he sees a fa- 
ther die ? Is there nothing which he would wish to re- 
call when he stands by a mother's grave ? What brother 
would undertake to vindicate all his conduct toward a sister? 
or what friend is there that has never had a feeling toward 
his friend which he ought not to have ? Who is there that 
would undertake to say that he has never failed in the duty 
of perfect honesty and truth in the transactions of busi- 
ness ? Nay, to come down to a lower standard, who, pro- 
fessing to be governed by the laws of honour, would ven- 
ture, when he comes to die, to stake his eternal welfare on 



24 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

the fact that he has never failed of perfect conformity to 
that arbitrary code? Who that professes to be governed 
by the rules of etiquette would attempt to maintain that 
those laws have always been perfectly observed ? Let a 
man choose his own standard of action; let him refer to 
any code by which he professes to regulate his conduct — 
would he be willing that every thought, and word, and feel- 
ing and action of his life should be brought out to noonday, 
and that his eternal welfare should be determined by the 
issue of the question whether he had or had not been per- 
fectly conformed to that code ? If not, how shall he vin- 
dicate himself from the charge of sin ? And if he cannot 
vindicate himself in reference to these low and imperfect 
standards, how shall he stand acquitted of the charge of a 
violation of the high and holy law of God — that he has 
never made a standard or rule of life — that he has never 
attempted to obey ? The love to his Maker which that re- 
quires he has never once attempted to exercise. The holy 
duties which that enjoins he has never endeavoured to per- 
form; its sacred injunctions he has never thought of bear- 
ing with him to the relations of life, to the counting-room, 
to the circles of his friendship, or to the scenes of his 
amusement. How, then, will he proceed in attempting to 
show that the charges of guilt brought against him are not 
true? 

(3.) The charges which are brought against man by his 
Maker are sustained by all the facts of history. What 
ground would that man take who should attempt to show 
that the accusations in the Bible against the race — that it 
is sinful and prone to evil — are unfounded and false ? On 
what would he base his argument ? To what part of the 
world — to what historic monument — to what recorded opi- 
nions would he turn ? Men often feel that the account in 
the Bible of the character of man — of the human heart — 
of the tendency of our nature— is harsh and gloomy. Thtfy 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 25 

are inclined to think better of the race, and to suppose that 
the views in the Bible must have been derived from the 
observation of man in a peculiarly dark age of the world, or 
were the result of feelings bordering on misanthropy. They 
think that man is better than he is there represented, or at 
least that, by certain modifications in society, he reaches a 
state where that description does not apply to him. On 
this account it is felt that the charge is one that cannot be 
sustained, and that it is not true now that all hope of salva- 
tion, on the ground of an upright life, is cut' off. But let a 
few indisputable facts be submitted to candid men. 

(a) One is, that the historic account of human conduct 
in the Bible is no worse than in other records. The narra- 
tion of crimes, of wars, of ambition, of carnage, of blood, 
of sensuality, of venality, of political profligacy or corrup- 
tion of manners there, is no worse than is to be found in 
Livy or Suetonius; in Gibbon or Hume. Every crime 
recorded in the sacred narrative has more than one parallel 
in the records of profane history, and every sentiment there 
expressed about man can be confirmed by any number of 
testimonies that the most sceptical could demand. The 
world has been many a time in a state like that described 
by Moses as the cause of the deluge ; and the earth now 
bears up many a city, where all the crimes on account of 
which Sodom was overthrown still have an existence. Her- 
culaneum and Pompeii have been revealed, by the monu- 
ments exposed to human view from beneath the ashes that 
covered them, to have been as corrupt, and corrupt in the 
same sense, as the cities of the plain \ and a single one of 
the capitals of Europe embosoms probably now more revolt- 
ing sins than they all. There is not an instance of fraud, 
corruption, or villany, attributed to man in the Bible, which 
has not its parallel in the present age of the world. The 
instances of depravity, whose deeds are recorded in the 
Bible, find abundant parallels in profane history, and not 

3 



26 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

one of the names of guilt there referred to surpasses in 
wickedness those of Nero, or Tiberius; of Alexander VI. 
or his wretched son ; of Henry VIII. or Charles II. ; or of 
the leaders of the French Revolution. 

(b) The account contained in the Bible, of human depra- 
vity, is sustained by the opinion of the sober and reflecting 
in all ages. Those who have given themselves to the con- 
templation of the condition of the world, have seen it, (the 
sad tendency to depravity in human nature,) lamented it, 
and sought to correct it; and yet the current of iniquity 
has swept over every barrier which man could erect against 
it, and sweeps on unchecked from age to age. 

(c) The same view of the human character has been 
taken by wicked men themselves. Byron had no confidence 
in human virtue ) Walpole said that every man had his 
price ; Chesterfield regarded all virtue as false and hollow ; 
Robespierre and Danton acted under the belief that every 
man deserved the guillotine. And 

(d) Every man acts on the presumption that every 
other man is a sinner, and that no confidence can be placed 
in him without securities, and expects that every other one 
will regard him in the same light. This security is not in 
human virtue, but in vaults, and bars, and locks and bonds, 
and he himself expects to be treated by every other man 
as if he had the same character. His head neither hangs 
down with shame, nor do his eyes flash with indignation 
when he is asked for security that he will pay an honest 
debt, or when he is told in a bank, or on exchange, that no 
individual or corporation will trust him, without having some 
other security besides himself that he is a safe and honest 
man In these circumstances, how can man go before God 
and attempt to justify himself on the ground that the 
charges against him are not true ? Can he take the ground 
that his Maker is mistaken, or that he has maliciously 
brought a false accusation ? 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 



27 



(4) There is but one other observation which it is neces- 
sary to make on this part of the subject. It is that con- 
science sustains the truth of all the charges which are 
brou-ht. Man exhibits this very strange and remarKable 
characteristic, that he often frames an argument to show 
that the race is not as guilty as is alleged, and, perhaps, 
succeeds in convincing others; but still his argument does 
nothing to affect the proof as it lies in his own soul. 
There °is that within himself which is to him overpower- 
in- demonstration that his arguments are all false, and 
that the charges against him are true. God has so formed 
the soul that he has there at all times what may be sum- 
moned forth at his pleasure, as a living witness that all 
that he has charged on man is true, and that shall render 
nugatory in a moment all the reasonings of men about the 
uprightness of their own hearts. This proof is found in a 
man's own conscience. This is a device by which man 
himself is made to coincide with and confirm the views of 
the Almighty— to approve where He approves— to condemn 
where He condemns. It stands apart from the deductions 
of reason ; is little affected by the arguments which men 
may employ ; is susceptible of being called up to give judg- 
ment at any time ; often pronounces sentence against the 
favourite opinions of the man himself; uniformly declares 
judgment in favour of right, and condemns what is wrong, 
and is always on the side of God and his claims. This mys- 
terious and' wonderful power is wholly under the divine con- 
trol. No matter what may be the cherished opinions of 
man ; no matter how he may call in question the correct- 
ness of the divine testimony against human conduct, and 
no matter how reluctant he may be to admit the impossi- 
bility of being saved by his own works ; yet God has power, 
at any moment, to summon the mind itself to sustain His 
own account of the state of the heart, and to put it into 
such a condition as to leave not a shadow of doubt that all 



28 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

that He lias said respecting its depravity is true. It re- 
quires all the art of a sinner to keep the voice of conscience 
silent, and to save himself from its rebukes. Well he 
knows that, if suffered to speak out, it will be in tones of 
deep condemnation. It often does speak out. In solitude; 
in the silence of the night; under the preaching of the 
gospel, when the mind in its lonely musings runs back by 
some mysterious law of association to the past ; in a revival 
of religion; on a bed of sickness; or in the prospect of 
death, conscience often utters its voice in tones that are so 
distinct that they can neither be misunderstood nor sup- 
pressed. These are circumstances when man is most likely 
to judge according to truth, and in such circumstances he 
is so made as to feel, without a doubt, that the judgment 
pronounced by conscience is in accordance with that of the 
Most High, and that the views pressed upon his conscience 
then, about his own character, are those which will be con- 
firmed by the sentence of the final Judge. " In thoughts 
from the visions of the night," said an ancient sage, "when 
deep sleep falleth on man, fear came upon me, and trem- 
bling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit 
passed before my face ; the hair of my flesh stood up : It 
stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image 
was before mine eyes ; there was silence, and I heard a voice, 
saying, Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a 
man be more pure than his Maker? Behold, he put no 
trust in his servants, and his angels he charged with folly : 
How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose 
foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the 
moth I" Job iv. 13—19. 

The point that has been now considered is, that man can- 
not justify himself before God by taking the ground that 
the facts are not as charged upon him, or that he has not 
in fact violated the law of God. This has been shown by 
these considerations : that it is impossible to believe that 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 29 

God would bring a false charge against man * that, as a 
matter of fact, man fails of perfect conformity to the very 
lowest standard of morals ) that the account in the Bible 
of the human character is confirmed by all the records else- 
where existing of the character of man ; and that, when 
man has denied the charge against him, conscience comes 
in to confirm the accusations and the decisions of the 
Almighty. 

III. Man cannot justify himself by showing that his con- 
duct is right. 

In the previous section, it has been shown that man can- 
not justify himself before God by denying the truth of the 
charges brought against him. In other words, he cannot 
take the position that the facts, in regard to his character 
and conduct, are not such as they are stated to be, or that 
his conduct has been, in all respects and all times, perfectly 
conformable to the law of God. He cannot take the ground 
which could be taken with propriety by sinless angels, that, 
as they have never departed in fact or in form from the 
strict requirements of a holy law, therefore they can claim 
it as a right to be treated as holy beings. Man cannot take 
•the position before his Maker which a good citizen can be- 
fore his country, that he has violated none of its laws, and 
therefore is entitled to its favour and protection. 

The only other ground of defence, or of justification, 

which man can set up, is, that it was right or proper for 

him to do as he has done : that, admitting the facts in the 

case to be as they are charged; that he does not love his 

Maker with a perfect heart ; that he violates his laws ; that 

he is under the influence of unholy passions, and that he 

neglects many things which are required of him, yet that 

such are the circumstances in which he is placed, that it is 

not wrong for him to do as he has done, or that he has 

a valid excuse, and ought not to be condemned. His condi- 

3* 



30 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

tion, lie might be ready to admit, is one that is to be pitied ; 
but his conduct is not such as to deserve blame or punish- 
ment. If a man can make this out, he will not be con- 
demned ; for God will not condemn the innocent. If man 
has a good and sufficient excuse for what he has done, there 
is no being in the universe who will look more benignantly 
on it than the Almighty ; for there is no one so ready to 
do justice to the innocent, or to allow its proper weight 
to all that ought to exculpate. It is necessary, therefore, 
to examine this ground of defence, or to inquire whether 
man can set up the plea that he has a right to do as he 
has done — to live as he is in fact living. 

Man is soon to stand before his Maker on a high charge 
of guilt. If he cannot deny the facts charged on him, he 
must take the ground that he has a right to do as he has 
done ; that he has a valid reason which excuses him ; that 
he ought to be acquitted, and that his deliverance should 
be hailed everywhere with songs and rejoicing, and that he 
ought to be received to heaven in triumph. What is this 
ground of defence ? What is its value ? Will it avail on 
the final trial ? 

Here it may be observed that man will not set up the 
plea of insanity, though more insane on the subject charged 
on him than many who have been acquitted on that ground 
by human tribunals. Man has too much pride and too much 
confidence that he is right, and that Grod is wrong, to urge 
this plea. Nor would he maintain that Grod has no jurisdic- 
tion over the case; for nothing is plainer than that he owes 
allegiance to the laws of his Maker, and that he cannot go 
beyond the limits of his empire. The points on which the 
accused sinner must rely, if he would undertake to show that 
he is not to blame for what he has done, and to justify him- 
self, must be such as the following : — Either that the consti- 
tution of things under which he is placed, is such as to make 
it inevitable that he should do as he does ; or that he is bu,t 



HOW SHALL MAN^BE JUST WITH GOD? 31 

acting out the nature which God has given him, and that 
therefore it must be right; or that the law of God is un- 
reasonably severe and stern, and he is excusable for not 
obeying it; or that the time of preparation for eternity is 
too short, and that too great interests are made to depend 
on this brief period of existence ; or that the penalty is too 
severe, and that if a man acts as well as he knows how, 
though he does not conform to the holy law of God, he 
ought not to be recompensed with eternal torments. If 
these points can be made out, man ought to be acquitted. 
If they cannot, has he any other ground of defence on 
which he can rely ? 

1. The first of these grounds of defence is derived from 
the constitution of things under which we are placed. Our 
minds, when we set up this defence, go back to the arrange- 
ment with Adam, and the effect of his sin on his posterity. 
The form of this defence is, that his fall, by the divine arrange- 
ment, placed us in far more unfavourable circumstances for 
salvation than we would otherwise have been; that his 
apostacy made it certain that all his descendants would sin; 
that it made it certain that the first act of each moral agent 
on earth would be wrong ; that there was a strong proba- 
bility thus created that all his posterity would be lost, and that 
all our strong propensities to evil, and our exposure to ruin, 
are to be traced to this arrangement. If they who rely on 
this ground of defence were disposed to take shelter under 
the declarations of Scripture, the defence would be found 
in the following statements of the apostle Paul : " Through 
the offence of one, many are dead." " The judgment was 
by one to condemnation." u By one man's offence, death 
reigned by one." " By the offence of one, judgment came 
upon all men to condemnation." "By one man's disobe- 
dience, many were made sinners." The law entered that 
the offence might abound." Rom. v. If these things are 



32 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

so, how can man be held to be guilty for conduct thus ren- 
dered certain and inevitable ? 

The question now is, whether this can be regarded as a 
vindication of the undisputed facts in the conduct of man. 
Will it be admitted as a sufficient reason for what we have 
done in violation of the holy law of God, when we stand at his 
bar ? The fact is undeniable that man thus early goes astray, 
and that he continues to wander farther and farther, unless 
he is restrained or reclaimed. Is it a sufficient excuse for 
this that Adam fell, and that we live under such a consti- 
tution that his sinning made it certain that we would sin 
also ? 

Now, in examining this question, we may admit two 
things. One is, that our circumstances, in consequence of 
his fall, are in many respects less favourable than they 
would otherwise have been; or that incalculable evils have 
come upon us in consequence of his apostacy ) and the 
other is, that there is much about it which neither Revelation 
nor human philosophy explains. But these are different 
points from the one before us, whether that act of our first 
father is a sufficient excuse or apology for our crimes ; or 
whether we can take shelter under that constitution as a 
vindication from the charge of guilt. In reply to this, two 
or three remarks may be made. 

The first is, that we are responsible not for his sin, but 
for our own. The sin which is charged upon us is not his, 
but ours. The question is, not whether his acting as he 
did will free us from accountability, or ill-desert, on account 
of his act, which is plain enough ; but whether it will free 
us from ill-desert, on account of our own sins. We could not 
be held guilty, i. e. blameworthy, for his sin ; and if this 
were the charge, the defence set up must be conclusive. 
No reasoning has yet shown that man either is or can be 
regarded as blameworthy on account of the crime of his 
first father. 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 33 

Again, the fall of Adam, and the constitution under 
which we live, compel no one to sin. Whatever may be 
their theories about native depravity, yet clear thinkers uni- 
versally hold that all which is properly sin, is voluntary, 
and there is nothing in which man more consults his 
own pleasure than in the course of life which he pursues. 
Every profane man means to be profane ; every dis- 
honest man prefers to be dishonest; every sensual man has 
pleasure in moral corruption. It is a great law of our 
being, that where freedom ends, responsibility ends, and 
there is nothing more universally true than that a wicked 
man does only what he prefers to do. Nay, the sins which 
are charged on him are very often the fruit of long and 
deliberate plan; and so attached is he to a course of iniquity, 
that no argument or entreaty is sufficient to induce him to 
attempt to change his method of life. So voluntary are men 
in their sins, that there is no argument or topic of persua- 
sion which will induce those living in sin, of themselves to 
break off their transgressions and turn to God. A man must 
take the ground that he is compelled by the act of Adam 
to do what he would otherwise not do, before the apostacy 
of our first father can be a vindication from the charges al- 
leged against him. Further, this plea would neither be urged 
nor admitted by man himself in any other case. In all the 
numerous charges brought against men before human tribu- 
nals in different lands and ages, it is probable that this has 
never once been alleged as a vindication. To no murderer, 
thief, pirate, or traitor, has it ever occurred to urge this in 
his own defence. The state of the world has never been 
such that it would be tolerated for a moment ; nor has the 
consideration that Adam fell, and that we are under a con- 
stitution where all men sin, ever, probably, in a single instance, 
even modified the verdict of a jury. There have been men 
on the bench and in the jury-box who have held this as a 
theological dogma, or as an excuse for their own sins before 



34 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

God ; but in a courtroom nature speaks out, and no man 
would venture to apply such a dogma of theology to a deci- 
sion of the bench. What would it avail on a charge of 
murder before any court in the world ? 

One other remark : It remains yet to be shown that the 
facilities for obtaining the divine favour, by men in their 
fallen state, are less than they would have been had they 
entered the world in the condition of their first parents. 
Are any sent to hell for Adam's sin alone ? That remains yet 
to be proved. Are any infants lost ? Not a particle of evi- 
dence has ever yet been furnished of this. Is it beyond 
the capacity of children to please God ? Let the remarks 
of the Saviour about the hosannahs in the temple answer. 
Is it less easy for us to obtain the divine approbation and 
to be saved, than it would have been if Adam had not 
fallen ? That remains to be proved. If a choice were to 
be made, it would seem to be easier for a fallen being to 
believe on Christ and to trust to him for salvation, than for 
even a holy being, who was liable to change, to keep a holy 
law unbroken forever. And, in fact, both our first parents, 
who were holy, and a portion of the holy angels, failed to 
retain their uprightness, while God vouchsafes his power- 
ful grace to enable us to believe. If these things are so, 
then man cannot put his defence on the ground that he is 
brought into the world under a constitution which made it 
certain that he would be a sinner. 

11. A second ground of defence to which man resorts in 
self-vindication, akin to this, but more common and plausi- 
ble, is, that he is but acting out the propensities of his na- 
ture. He did not make himself. He is as God made him. 
He is but indulging inclinations which his Creator has im- 
planted in his bosom, and the indulgence of which, there- 
fore, cannot be attended with blame, or followed by His dis- 
pleasure. Can it be wrong for him to look upon the light 
of the sun ? Can it be wrong for him to be charmed with 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 35 

the beauty of a sweet landscape, or the pleasant music of a 
waterfall ? Can it be wrong for him to allay the demands 
of hunger and thirst, to protect himself from cold, and to 
provide a shelter from the storm ? The innocence of these 
things being admitted, as it must be, he applies the con- 
cession to all the propensities and inclinations within him • 
to all that has led him to do what is charged upon him as 
wrong, and says, I am as God made me, and for that I can- 
not be held to be guilty. I ought, therefore, to be acquitted 
of the charge of guilt. Let us inquire whether this will 
answer as a ground of defence before God. 

The most obvious remark in regard to it is, that, if it is 
a valid excuse in reference to religion, it is in reference to 
human conduct generally. For why may not any man ac- 
cused of crime urge the same thing in self-defence ? Has he 
done any thing more than act out certain propensities which 
he found in his nature ? When Csesar crossed the Rubi- 
con, Hannibal the Alps, Alexander the Granicus, and Na- 
poleon poured his armies on Italy, Egypt, Austria or Rus- 
sia, did either do any thing more than follow out the incli- 
nations of his nature ? Did they not find stirring within 
them a spirit of ambition which urged them on to trample 
down the liberties of mankind ? Did Robespierre or Dide- 
rot, Alexander VI. or Caesar Borgia, do any thing more than 
act out certain propensities in their souls ? Did Torque- 
mada in the inquisition, or Cortes in the butcheries of Mexico, 
do any thing but act out what they found within theirs ? 
And the assassin, the duellist, the murderer, what does he 
do more ? Is he not as God made him, as much as the 
sinner who urges this plea ? And would not this plea be as 
good for the one as the other ? 

But, further, this plea is contrary to the convictions of 
common sense and the universal judgment of right among 
men. If it were well founded, then the true course for 
man, if he would please God ; would be to give unrestrained 



36 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 



indulgence to every inclination in his bosom. Nay, then 
it would be wrong for him to check any of his passions, and 
his duty would be to give them the rankest growth and the 
broadest indulgence possible; for should not man cultivate 
all that God has implanted in his bosom ? Then all the 
restraints on the passions of children must be displeasing to 
God; all the lessons of order, morality, and religion, are a 
contravening of his wishes ; all colleges, schools, and 
churches are a nuisance; all court-houses and prisons are a 
violation of human liberty. Then the great benefactors of 
the race, and those who have been especially the friends of 
God, and have obtained the highest seat in heaven, have 
been those who have proclaimed the innocence of universal 
licentiousness, or who have furnished the greatest facilities 
for the indulgence of passion. From the preachers of reli- 
gion ; from pious princes ; from the dispensers of justice ; 
from the patrons of order and of law; from Paul, Aurelius, 
and Hale, the crown is to be transferred to such moralists 
as Paine, such princes as Charles II., and such judges as 
Jeffries. But who is prepared to take this ground ? This 
view goes against the common sense and the common judg- 
ment of men. There are things in man to be restrained, in 
order that he may be virtuous. It is not sufficient to secure 
the meed of virtue to say, I am as God made me, and am 
but acting out the propensities of my nature. What, then, 
is the mistake which is made in this plea ? What fallacy 
is there in it, for it seems to have plausibility and truth ? 
An answer may be readily given to these questions by mak- 
ing a distinction, which the young man may apply through 
life to the noblest purposes of self-improvement. In the 
pleas set up, two things are confounded which are wholly 
distinct, and to be dealt with on different principles— our 
constitutional propensities as God made them, and our cor- 
rupt propensities which have another origin. The former 
are to be cultivated and earned to the highest pitch of per- 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 37 

fection possible; the latter are to be checked, restrained, 
subdued. The former are innocent, noble, and ennobling ; 
the latter are debasing and degrading — " earthly, sensual, 
devilish." There are propensities of our nature, and laws 
of our being, which God has implanted, and which, if kept 
within proper limits, are harmless, or which may contribute 
to our highest elevation in the scale of existence. To eat, 
to drink, to sleep, are laws of our animal being — harmless 
if restrained, debasing if indulged in contrary to the just 
rules of temperance ; to aspire after knowledge, to seek a 
"good name," to rise to the fellowship of higher intelli- 
gences, to bring out and cultivate the benevolent affections, 
is to follow nature as God has made us, and never betrays 
or debases us. But to follow out the inclinations of ambi- 
tion, and pride, and vanity, and lust and revenge, is a dif- 
ferent thing. These debase and sink to a lower level than 
that of brutes ; for, in proportion as we may rise, so may we 
descend. The star that culminates highest may sink the 
lowest, and as woman, if vile, sinks lower than man can, 
so man, if debased, sinks beneath the brute. 

Men mistake, then, in this. When they indulge in these 
things, they are not, in any proper sense, acting out their 
nature. They are not as God made them. They are sunken, 
debased, fallen. Let men act according to the great laws 
which He has impressed upon their being, and they will be 
noble, holy, godlike. Thus acting, man would have met 
the approbation of his Maker, and might have pleaded in- 
nocent to the charges of guilt. But let him not give indul- 
gence to corruption, and then seek shelter in the plea, " I 
am as God made me." 

III. A third ground of defence would be, that the law of 
God is stern and severe, and that his requirements are of 
such a nature, that man has no power to comply with them. 
The position which would be taken is, that there is no obli- 
gation where there is no ability, and that, as man now 



38 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

has no power to yield obedience, he cannot be held to be 
chargeable with guilt. The principle here stated seems to 
be one that is based on common sense, and that must ever 
command the assent of all men who are not blinded by 
theory or by prejudice. It is impossible for man to feel 
himself guilty or blameworthy for not doing what he had 
no power to do. He may count it a misfortune, or he may ex- 
perience calamities and suffer losses, because he has no greater 
power ; but it is not possible for him to feel on this account 
the compunctions of remorse. With the limited powers of 
man, it is impossible for him ever to feel himself guilty for 
not creating a world, or not guiding the stars, or not raising 
the dead, and he cannot conceive that, by any revelation 
whatever, or any course of reasoning, or any requirement 
laid on him, he should ever feel himself blameworthy for 
not doing those things. If, then, it were so that God has 
required of man more than he is in any sense able to per- 
form, the nature which he has given us (and which, in that 
case, would be a very strange and unaccountable endow- 
ment) would teach us two things : one, that his government 
was a tyranny, and the other, that man could not be to 
blame. Such a creature, under such a government, might 
be made to suffer, but could not be punished ; he might 
experience pain of body, but he never would know the 
pangs of remorse. But is this so ? The law itself is the 
best exponent of the views of God on this subject, and that 
law is clear and explicit. " Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all 
thy mind." This is the first and great commandment. 
And the second is like unto it : " Thou shalt love thy 
neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang 
all the law and the prophets. " Matt. xxii. 37-40. Could 
any thing be more reasonable than this ? God asks nothing 
which we have not; nothing which we have no power to 
render. He asks " all" the heart, the mind, the strength, 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 39 

and he asks no more. He does cot require for himself the 
service claimed of angelic powers, but that adapted to our 
own ; he asks no love for our neighbour which we do not 
feel that we are abundantly able to show to ourselves. To 
take shelter from the charges against us, under the plea 
that our Maker has required services beyond our power to 
render, is therefore directly in the face of his own require- 
ments ; is to charge him with tyranny where his require- 
ments are as clear as noonday, and as equal as they can be, 
and where he has expressly told us that the plea cannot and 
will not be sustained : — " house of Israel, are not my 
ways equal ? Are not your ways unequal ? Therefore 
will I judge you, house of Israel, according to your ways, 
saith the Lord God. Repent and turn yourselves from 
all your transgressions, so iniquity shall not be your ruin." 
Ezek. xviii. 29, 30. 

IV. A fourth ground of defence, on which man charged 
with guilt is secretly relying in self-justification, is, that the 
penalty of the law of God is unreasonably severe, and that 
no consideration can make it right to recompense the errors 
and crimes of this short life with eternal punishment. The 
ground here taken is, that it would be wrong for God to 
punish man in this manner, and therefore that man has a 
claim to eternal life. The inference drawn by the sin- 
ner charged with guilt is, that if the penalty is unreason- 
ably severe, he cannot be held to be guilty, and has a 
right to disregard the law of his Maker. Now it is not 
designed here to attempt a defence of the doctrine of eter- 
nal puishment, or to show that the impenitent sinner will 
suffer for ever. It must be admitted that there are myste- 
ries on that subject which the human powers at present can- 
not explain. All that the subject demands is to examine 
this reasoning which the sinner sets up in his defence. Is 
the severity of a penalty then, even supposing it to be 
wholly unreasonable, a valid excuse for violating law or for 



40 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

doing wrong ? It is possible to conceive, for such tilings 
have been, that the penalty for the crime of treason may be 
entirely too severe ; that its execution may be attended with 
barbarous cruelty ; and that it may be followed by a taint 
of blood, and by inflictions on the family of the traitor 
wholly unjustifiable by any principles of equity; but would 
this be any justification of the act of treason ? Does it 
make the betrayal of the state a matter of duty or of inno- 
cence ? Is it such a meritorious act that he who performs 
it has a claim on the offices and emoluments which a sove- 
reign has to bestow on deserving subjects ? So in the mat- 
ter before us. If there are things which we cannot explain 
about future punishment; if it has a degree of severity 
which we have no means of vindicating ; is it fair to infer 
that it is right to violate the law of heaven, and has he who 
does it a claim on the crown of glory ? Yet this seems 
to be what is involved in this ground of defence which 
a man charged with sin sets up. Would it be reasonable or 
proper for him to suppose that God would admit a plea, 
drawn from his own alleged injustice and cruelty, as a rea- 
son for the habitual violation of his law ? But the plea 
has no force in another respect. Our relations to the 
administration of justice are not only concerned with the 
question what the penalty is, but with the question whe- 
ther it is practicable to avoid it ? There may be reasons 
operating in the appointment of a penalty which we do not 
understand. It is only necessary for us to know what 
the penalty is, and to have such freedom that we can avoid 
it by a correct life. They who live in England now, or 
they who lived under the administration of the laws in 
times of greater severity, can have no reason to complain, 
so far as appears, of the punishment affixed there to treason. 
It can be readily seen, indeed, that there would be much 
that would be painful and disgraceful in being drawn on a 
hurdle to the place of execution ; in being quartered and 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 41 

publicly exposed ; in the confiscation of property ; the degra- 
dation of a family, and the taint of blood. Why should a 
good citizen, who did not design to. commit treason, com- 
plain of it? It would be easy to avoid it, and his knowing 
the severity of the punishment should only make him the 
more cautious to do his duty to his country. Least of all, 
knowing what the penalty was, could he set up a plea of 
innocence when he had betrayed his country, on the ground 
that the penalty was severe. Without pursuing this rea- 
soning any farther, may it not be asked whether it is not 
just as applicable to the government of God as to a human 
administration ? 

V. There is but one other ground of defence or self-jus- 
tification which the accused sinner can be supposed to set 
up. It is that too great results are made to depend on the 
present life ; that life is too short, that our days are too few 
and fleeting, that our continuance here is too uncertain, that 
we are liable to be too suddenly called away, to make it 
proper to suspend so great interests on any thing that we 
can do here. The accused sinner would take the ground 
that eternal consequences demand a longer probation, and 
that the longevity of the antediluvian patriarchs was a pe- 
riod quite circumscribed enough to make it proper to suspend 
so great interests upon life. Much might be said in reply 
to this; but the subject may be made, perhaps, sufficiently 
plain by a few remarks. Reference might be made to the 
instances which occur in the life of an individual, or in a 
state, where the most momentous and far-reaching results 
are made to depend on the action of a moment; but, with- 
out dwelling on the numerous illustrations which occur on 
that point, two remarks may be made in reply to this ground 
of defence : One is, that, as experience has, in millions of 
cases, shown, the time allotted to man is ample for a prepa- 
ration for eternity. Countless hosts before the throne have 

found it so ; and millions are on their way to join them who 

4.% 



42 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

find the period of probation abundant to enable them to pre- 
pare for heaven. That all others are not with them in the same 
blissful path, is not because life is too short to enter it, but 
is to be traced to other causes. Men require length of days 
to amass wealth, or to perfect their schemes of earthly ag- 
grandizement; but the purposes of salvation do not need it. 
The giving of the heart to God in sincerity through Jesus 
Christ — an act which may be performed in the briefest pe- 
riod which a moral agent lives — is enough to secure salva- 
tion. Wealth or honour could not be secured in that way 
in so brief a period ; but the salvation of the soul may be. 
The other remark is, that this vindication is set up in cir- 
cumstances which painfully demonstrate that it cannot be 
sincere. Not time enough to secure salvation ! Too great 
interests suspended on this brief period of existence ! Un- 
reasonable to make eternal results depend on the fleeting 
hours of this short life. And from whom do these objec- 
tions come ? From those on whom the hours of life hang 
heavily, and " who are often wishing its different periods at 
an end ;" from those who are impatient for some season of 
festivity or enjoyment to arrive, and who elude the slow- 
revolving wheels of time ; from those whose days are wea- 
riness and sadness, for they have nothing to interest them, 
nothing to do ; from those whose principal study is the art 
of killing time, and all whose plans have no other end \ from 
those who waste the hours that might be consecrated to 
prayer in needless slumber, and from whose lips each morn- 
ing, while they are now locked in repose, there might pro- 
ceed the earnest breathing of a penitent heart that would 
insure salvation • from those who, over worthless, or corrupt- 
ing verse, or in the perusal of romances, or in day-dreams, 
or at the toilet, waste, each day, time enough to secure the 
redemption of the soul. From such lips and hearts; from 
those who live thus, and to whom life puts on these forms, 
assuredly the objection should not be heard, that too great 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 43 

results are made to depend on this short life, and that there- 
fore they are blameless in neglecting God. 

If these are correct views, then the sinner cannot justify 
himself. It has been shown that he cannot deny the reality 
of the facts charged on him, and the grounds of defence 
which the human heart is disposed to set up in self-vindica- 
tion have been considered. It is not improper, at this stage 
of the argument, to make a personal appeal to the reader, 
and to ask him to consider the views which have been sug- 
gested as a personal matter. The conclusion which we 
have reached is, that the unpardoned sinner is a lost and 
ruined being ; that he is under condemnation ) that he is 
held to be guilty in the sight of God ; that he is soon to be 
arraigned on charges involving the question of his eternal 
welfare, and that, unless he is in some way acquitted of 
those charges, they will sink him to ruin. The views 
which have been thus expressed, lie at the foundation of the 
system of salvation by grace. They are such as, when felt, 
lead to the conviction of sin, and to that sense of helpless- 
ness which is preparatory to the reception of pardon and 
salvation by the grace of the gospel. If these views pro- 
duced their fitting effect, they would leave the impression 
of guilt, helplessness, and danger on the mind of every one 
who is not converted and pardoned. Sooner or later every 
one will feel this. The sinner may be unwilling to admit 
the force of these arguments now ; for no one, if he can 
help it, will be overwhelmed with the conviction of guilt, or 
have his mind unsettled and harassed by apprehensions of 
danger. But not always can he put this subject far from 
him. He will lie down and die, and those are sad feelings 
which the dying sinner has, when he reflects that his life 
has been spent in sin, and that he is dying under condemna- 
tion. He will, from the bed of death, look out tremblingly 
on the eternal world — on that shoreless and bottomless 
ocean on which he is about to be launched, and it will be 



44 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

sad to feel that lie is about to enter that vast and fearful 
world, an unpardoned sinner. He will tread his way up to 
the bar of a holy God j and, little as he may be concerned 
about that now, it will be sad to tread that gloomy way 
alone, and to feel, as he goes, that he is under condemnation. 
He will stand and look on the burning throne of Deity, and 
on his final Judge ; he will await, and with what an agony 
of emotion ! the sentence that shall fall from his lips sealing 
his eternal doom. Oh, how can he then be just with God ? 
How vindicate his ways before him ? How stand there 
and justify his neglect of his commands, his neglect of 
prayer, his neglect of the offers of mercy, his neglect of 
his own soul ? How. then, can he show his Maker that it 
was right not to love him, not to pray to him, not to thank 
him, not to embrace his offer of mercy ? How can he show 
that it was right for him to live without hope and without 
God in the world ? How can he be saved ? 

IV. Man cannot merit salvation. 

In the previous section it has been shown that man can- 
not justify himself either by denying the facts charged on 
him, or by showing that he had a right to do as he has 
done. The inquiry at once presents itself, How then can he 
be saved ? There are but two ways conceivable : one by his 
own merits — that is, that he somehow deserves to be saved ; 
the other, by the merits of another, or of others. If it be 
in the latter way, it must either be by the merits of Christ, 
or it must be because certain eminent saints have done more 
than was demanded of them, and that their merits, gar- 
nered up and deposited in certain hands, can be made over 
to others. It is not proposed to inquire now whether this 
latter method be in accordance with truth, but whether men 
can merit salvation for themselves. They can do it if their 
lives are such that they deserve to go to heaven, or if it 
would be wrong for God to punish them forever, for " God 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 45 

will not do wickedly, neither will the Almighty pervert 
judgment. " Job xxxv. 12. The importance of this in- 
quiry will be at once perceived, for the great mass of man- 
kind are depending on their own righteousness for salva- 
tion, and the grand issue between Christianity and the 
world lies just in this point. There are two subjects of 
inquiry, which, if they can be made clear, will conduct to 
the truth in the case. 

I. What is meant by merit ? 

II. Can man merit heaven ? 

I. What is meant by merit ? The* word is in common 
use, and the common use is the correct one. We speak of 
merit when a man deserves a reward for something which 
he has done, or when it would be wrong to withhold it. 
He renders to him who emplo} r s him an equivalent, or what 
is of as much value as is paid him for his services. Two or 
three simple illustrations will make the common use of the 
word plain, and show its bearing on the question before us. 

You hire a day-labourer. You make a bargain with him 
at the outset; he complies with the terms on his part, and 
at night you pay him. He has earned, deserved, or merited 
that which you pay him ; he has been faithful to his part 
of the agreement, and the service which he has rendered is 
worth as much to you as the wages which you pay him. 
You could have done the work, perhap?, yourself; but you 
preferred to hire him, for you might yourself be more profit- 
ably or pleasantly employed. At all events, what he has 
done is worth to you all which you pay him, and it would 
be wrong, on every consideration, for you to withhold it. If 
you choose to give him, any thing more than was specified 
in the agreement, it would be a gratuity; but that which 
you agreed to give him he has a right to demand, and you 
are not at liberty to withhold it. He has deserved or earned 
it, for he has rendered you a full equivalent, according to 
the terms of the contract. 



46 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

A man enlists to defend his country as a soldier. It 
is supposed, in the contract which is made with him, 
that his service will be of equal value to his country 
with the pay which he receives. By fighting its battles; 
by guarding its seacoasts, villages, towns, and hamlets ; 
by keeping its fields from being trod down by an enemy; 
by protecting the lives of aged men, helpless women and 
children ; and by defending the flag of the nation from 
insult, it is supposed that his services are worth full as 
much to the country as he receives in his pay. The pay 
is graduated, in part, by the best estimate which can be 
made of the value of the service which a man can render 
in this calling, and the nation would be no gainer by dis- 
missing him from its service. He complies with the con- 
tract, and when he comes and shows his scars, and tells of 
his perils and privations, his weary marches and his risk of 
life, and his separation from home and friends in the cause 
of his country, his country will not grudge him the pittance 
that he receives ; for he has earned it and merited it, and 
it would not be right to withhold it from him. 

You employ a physician. The service which he renders 
you is regarded as a full equivalent for what you pay him. 
What you receive from him in his care, attention, skill, and 
sympathy, you consider to be fully equal in value to the 
compensation which you give him. Your relief from pain, 
your recovery of the use of your bodily powers, or the res- 
toration to your affectionate embrace, in sound health, of a 
wife or child, you consider as an ample equivalent for all 
which he asks you for his services, and, were an election to 
be made, you would much prefer to pay the amount of the 
physician's fees, to going through those sorrows again. 
What he receives, you feel that on every account he de- 
serves or has earned, and it would be wrong for you to 
withhold it. 

In each of these cases, that is true which the apostle 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 47 

Paul affirms : " To him that worketh, the reward is not 
reckoned of grace, but of debt." These illustrations will 
explain the proper sense of the word "merit." In each 
instance, there is an equivalent for what is paid; in each 
instance, what is demanded could be enforced as a claim of 
right. There is no other sense in which the words merit 
or desert can be used. All besides this is favour or grace. 
If you choose to give the day-labourer, the soldier, or the 
professional man, more than you agreed, or more than his 
services are worth to you, you have an undoubted right to 
do so ; but you would not put it on the ground of his merit 
or desert. You would feel that it was a gratuity which 
could not be enforced by justice, and where no blame would 
be attached to you if it were withheld. If his perils, or 
services, or self-denials and sacrifices, were greater than you 
anticipated when the contract was made, or if the service 
rendered was really of more value to you than the amount 
which you are pledged to give him, you may consider your- 
self bound by equity to give him more ; for you feel that 
he has earned or merited it. Thus you would be glad to 
compensate, if you could, the wounded soldier who has 
perilled all in your defence; and on the same principle, if 
you could do it, you would wish to recompense the man 
who, at the risk of his life, should save your child from the 
devouring flame, or from a watery grave. 

II. We come now to apply these principles to the case 
before us. Keeping this explanation of the nature of merit 
in view, we approach the inquiry, whether man can merit 
heaven. Can he be saved because he deserves it ? Can 
he be so profitable to God that he can advance a just claim 
to an admission to the world of glory ? If he can, he will 
be saved; if he cannot, he should lose no time in endea- 
vouring to ascertain whether there is any other way by 
which he may be saved ? In reference to this inquiry, the 
following considerations may be submitted : 



48 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

(1.) Man can render no service to his Maker for which 
the reward of heaven would be a proper equivalent. Or, 
in other words, the amount of service which he can render 
is not such as can be properly measured by the reward of 
everlasting life. His service to his Maker and to the uni- 
verse is not of so much value that he can claim eternal life 
as an equivalent. We have seen that this does exist in the 
case of the day-labourer, the soldier, and the physician. 
We can see a correspondence between the service rendered 
and the compensation, in these cases, which makes us feel 
that there is a propriety and equity in the reward. But, in 
reference to any connection or correspondence between the 
service which man can render his Maker and the rewards 
of heaven, we can see no such propriety and equity. The 
one does not measure the other. The universe is not so 
much benefitted by the service of man, that everlasting life 
and infinite happiness would be only a fair equivalent, 
or that wrong would be done if that reward should be 
withheld. Yet is it not a fair principle that this must be 
the case if man deserves or merits salvation ? Must there 
not have been such an amount or value of service rendered 
that it would be injustice to withhold the reward — injustice 
such as would occur in the case of the faithful day-labourer, 
the soldier, the physician, if their pay was withheld? 
That must be extraordinary service rendered to the universe, 
or to God, which deserves the glories of an eternal heaven 
as its reward. That is extraordinary service rendered to 
you, if a stranger rescues a child from impending death and 
restores him to your transported bosom, and you feel that no 
compensation which you can make would be more than an 
equivalent. That was extraordinary service which was ren- 
dered to their country by the heroes of the American Revo- 
lution; and, as the results of their patriotism and perils are 
seen in the unexampled prosperity of the land which they 
rescued, we feel that the pension of the old soldier is a very 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 49 

inadequate recompense. That was extraordinary virtue 
which led the father of his country through the trials, per- 
plexities, and perils of that time, and which he evinced 
when, having laid the foundation of our liberty, he volunta- 
rily retired to private life, leaving the people in the enjoy- 
ment of freedom, and we feel that no wealth which the 
nation had to offer, no monument of marble or of brass 
which art could rear, would equal the measure of his praise. 
But has man any such extraordinary service to render to 
his Maker and to the universe ? Has he done any thing, 
can he do any thing for God and for the empire which He 
rules, which would make the wealth of heaven and its ever- 
lasting glories only an equitable recompense ? Obviously, 
there is no congruity, no fitness, no correspondence between 
the one and the other, and when men talk about meriting 
heaven, or when they feel that they deserve to be saved, 
they have not well considered the import of language. 
They use it correctly in common life. Is it not right to 
ask that it may be used with the same exactness in religion ? 

(2.) This general principle, which appears so obvious, 
may be illustrated with particular reference to the religious 
service which men render to their Maker. If man merits 
heaven and is to be saved on account of his own deservings, 
it will be conceded that the service must be in some way 
connected with religion, or of such a nature that it can be 
regarded as the service of God. You would not feel your- 
self bound to pay a day-labourer if, instead of working for 
you, he worked all day for your neighbour, or was idle; 
you would not think of recompensing a soldier if he slept 
on his post, or fought under the standard of the enemy. 

There are religious men upon the earth, men who are 
honestly engaged in the service of God, and who, in con- 
nection with their religious services, are looking for the 
rewards of heaven. Our subject, in its progress, demands 
that we inquire just here, whether the service which they 



50 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD ? 

render is of such a nature that they merit eternal life ? Is 
it because they are so profitable to God and his cause that 
the rewards of heaven would be only an equivalent for the 
service which they render ? Let us look a moment at this 
matter. 

A man who is truly religious renders a real and valuable 
service to the cause of virtue and of God. His existence 
is a blessing and not a curse. The universe is made better 
and happier because he lives. It would be a loss to society 
and to the universe, if his example, his conversation, his 
plans of wisdom, his experience, and his generous deeds, 
were annihilated, or had not been. When the "rewards" 
of heaven are bestowed upon him, it will not be without 
some reference to a fitness or propriety that they should be 
so bestowed. There will be a sense in which every man 
will be " rewarded according to his works." But, in refer- 
ence to the bearing of this indisputable fact on the case 
before us, there are two or three things that deserve to be 
considered. 

(a) One is, that your individual existence is not neces- 
sary to secure the service which is now actually rendered. 
God is not so dependent on you that he could not accom- 
plish his purposes without you, or that, if you should be 
removed, service of equal value might not be secured in 
some other way. By the great law of his kingdom, the 
agency of man is to be employed in the accomplishment of 
his purposes; but your individual agency is not indispensa- 
ble. The services of a minister of the Gospel who is emi- 
nently useful, and who is at a time of life, and has a mea- 
sure of experience and learning, that seems to fit him for an 
important station, can be supplied by some one that God can 
place in his stead. When he is taken away, a mighty 
chasm, indeed, seems to be made ; but his withdrawal soon 
ceases to be felt, for others rush in to fill his place ; as the 
surface of the ocean soon becomes smooth ; and it seems to be 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 51 

as full as it was before, though the waterspout has lifted up 
and carried away a portion of the mighty deep, or the sun 
causes it to ascend in vapours ; for streams and rivers all the 
while pour into that ocean and it is always kept full. The 
man that was so learned and wise that it seemed that no one 
else could supply his place at the head of a college, or so 
sagacious and prudent that it seemed that some vast plan 
of benevolence depended on him, is removed — but the chasm 
is soon filled up ; just as in storming a city, when the leader 
falls, some subaltern steps into his place, and leads on the 
conquest with the freshness of youth, and with wisdom and 
valour that had been in training for just this breach which 
God foresaw would occur. Let us not then suppose that our 
services are indispensable to God. Let us not imagine, that 
he is dependent on us or is under obligation to us. In the 
bosom of society there are undeveloped powers which will 
more than fill our places ; in the church there is piety ma- 
turing which can do more than we can do — and the very 
purposes of human advancement cherished in the divine 
mind, may demand our removal. 

(li) The religious man will reflect further that his best 
services do not deserve heaven. A man who is truly pious, 
and who has any proper sense of his own imperfections, and 
of the glory to which he is looking forward, never feels that 
there is any proportion between the services which he ren- 
ders to God here, and the immortal blessedness to which he 
hopes to be elevated hereafter. He renders no service to 
the cause of truth and virtue, which, in his own estimation, 
is an equivalent for the rewards which he trusts are in re- 
serve for him, and after all his toils he feels that those rewards 
will be not of " debt" but of grace, and that he is an " un- 
profitable servant." God has taken effectual care of this in 
his plan of salvation ; and whoever he may be that expects 
heaven on the ground of his own merit, it will not be he 



52 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

who gives evidence that he is truly a devoted and faithful 
servant of God. 

(c) If, however, at any time this feeling of merit or claim 
should arise in the mind of a truly pious man, it is effec- 
tually checked by a moment's reflection on the way in which 
he has been disposed to engage in the service of God at all. 
It is not by any native inclination or tendency of mind ; it 
has been solely by grace. Whatever service he may render, 
.the origin of it is to be traced back to that distinguishing 
mercy which led him to seek after God, when he was dis- 
posed to pursue his own ways ; which recalled him when he 
was a wretched wanderer from the paths of truth and salva- 
tion. The case is like this. You go into a " market place" 
and find a man " idle," and inclined to be idle. You reason 
and remonstrate with him, and by persevering entreaty and 
the offer of reward, arouse him from his indolence and in- 
duce him to spend his time in your service. Now, however 
faithful he may be, or however valuable may be the services 
which he may render you, he will never feel that any merit 
is to be attributed to himself. He owes to you his indus- 
trious habits, and all which he can ever secure by his labour. 
Or to take a case more in point. You go into a miserable 
hovel, and find a wretch in the lowest stages of vice and 
misery. He was once a man in heart as well as in form, 
but now he has wholly lost the manhood of the one and 
almost of the other. He is loathsome by vice and disease, 
and is a wretched outcast. He has no wish to be a man 
again ; he has no energy to arouse him from his condition ; 
he has no friend to take him by the hand, or even to pity 
him in his vices and woes. You take compassion on him. 
You clothe him in decent apparel. You remonstrate with 
him on his evil course. You remind him of what he was, 
and tell him of what he may be still. You rekindle the 
dying spark of self-respect ; show him that he may yet for- 
sake the paths of vice and be respectable again ; gradually 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 53 

breathe into him the wish to be virtuous and pure and happy; 
give him a comfortable home to dwell in, and a piece of 
land to cultivate as his own ; speak kindly to him when he 
is discouraged ; shield him when he is tempted by his old 
companions; offer him ample reward for any services which 
he may render you; and he returns to the ways of industry, 
and rises to a condition of competency and respectability. 
Perchance in doing this, you have lighted on a " gem of 
purest ray serene" in that rubbish, and the unhappy wretch 
whom you have rescued, had a genius which takes its place 
among the brightest constellations of talent, and its light 
beams afar on the nations. Yet how will he feel in these 
circumstances ? Will he feel that this is to be traced to his 
own merit, or that the wealth or honour which may gather 
around him are the measure of his desert ? But for you he 
will feel that he would even now have been occupying that 
wretched hovel, or more likely would have been in the 
drunkard's grave. Whatever he has of moral worth, in- 
fluence, or reputation is to be traced to you. Thus it is 
with the Christian ; and feeling this, he cannot regard him- 
self as so profitable to God as to merit the rewards of heaven. 
(3.) If it were conceded that the rewards of heaven were 
a proper recompense for the religious services which man 
can render to God, yet they would not be the suitable re- 
ward of those who are commonly expecting heaven on the 
ground of their own merits. The truly religious man, as we 
have seen, expects heaven, not on the ground of his own 
deserts, but through the grace of God. We may, therefore, 
lay the case of such out of the question in the inquiry whe- 
ther men can deserve salvation by their own merits. The 
other class, embracing the mass of mankind, expect to be 
saved because they deserve to be saved; or, which amounts 
to the same thing, because they do not deserve to be damned. 
The ground of their claim is not that they are religious, — 

for they do not profess to be, and not that they render such 

5* 



54 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

service to the cause of God that the rewards of heaven would 
be an equivalent for their services — for they do not profess 
to be engaged in his service at all. What then is it ? It 
is that they are honest, true, faithful to their contracts, 
honourable in their dealings, disposed to aid others in their 
distress, and courteous in their treatment of their fellow- 
men. One who leads such a life they suppose does not 
deserve to be cast off and made miserable forever ) or, what is 
the same thing, they suppose that in all justice and equit}^ 
he ought to be made happy in a future state ; that is, that he 
may be saved on the ground of his own merits. What is 
now the value of this claim ? With the principles before us 
which have been laid down, let us endeavour to answer this 
question. This is the inquiry, Is heaven the appropriate re- 
ward of such a life ? An illustration or two will make this 
plainer than abstract reasoning would do. You hire a man 
as a day-labourer. He comes to you at night for his pay. 
If he has been industrious according to the contract, and 
faithful to your interests, the case is a plain one, and you do 
not hesitate. But you put the interrogatory to him, " Did 
you go into my vineyard, and spend the day in cultivating 
it for me, and in a careful regard to my interests V u No/' 
is the honest reply, " but I have spent the day diligently ; I 
have not been an idle man. I have attended to the cultiva- 
tion of my own vineyard, and been faithful to my family, 
and I may appeal to all my neighbours for my general 
courtesy and honesty of life." If you now say that this is 
a case which is so palpably absurd that it never could occur, 
it may be replied that it has been made absurd on purpose. 
Such a man would be only speaking out, in the honesty of 
his heart, what is the secret claim of every one who is not 
engaged in the service of God, and who yet feels that he 
ought to be saved. He does not even profess to be attend- 
ing to the interests of his Creator or engaged in his service. 
You send a clerk into the Western States to collect your 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 55 

debts. He returns. " Have you been diligent and success- 
ful in the duty assigned you V "I was diligent. I tra- 
velled much. In all my journey I injured no one ; I treated 
no one roughly; I addressed no one in any other manner 
than in the language required in refined life. I also entered 
valuable lands for myself, and have a prospect of rising to 
affluence and respectability." " But what has this to do 
with the reward which would be appropriate for one em- 
ployed in my service V u Nothing," a child would reply. 
But has it not just as much to do with it as the claim of a 
man who does not profess to serve his Maker, and who lives 
only to regard his own interests, has to the rewards of hea- 
ven ? You have a servant or an apprentice whom you have 
a right to punish if he does wrong. You enjoin on him a 
specific duty, a duty of much importance to yourself, and 
one that is clearly reasonable in its nature. At the proper 
time you call him to an account. The duty is not dis- 
charged; the service is not rendered. He pleads, however, 
that he does not deserve punishment. He has been steadily 
engaged all the while ; he has been entirely honest and up- 
right in his dealings with his fellow-servants ; he has treated 
them with perfect courtesy, and has even acquired an envia- 
ble reputation for amiableness of manners ; nay, he has more 
than once relieved a fellow-servant that was poor, and sick, 
and dying. All this is very well, it would be said in reply ; 
but how can this constitute a claim for the specific reward 
which was offered ? How can it show that he who has 
wholly omitted a known and specific duty does not deserve 
the punishment which was threatened? With what face 
could such a servant claim the reward due to faithful service 
in the cause of his master ? These plain and obvious prin- 
ciples are as applicable to religion as they are to the common 
transactions of life. God requires of us a specific service. 
It is not general and indefinite, or left to our choice as to 
what it shall be. It is that we shall serve Mm; that we 



56 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

shall obey his commands; that we shall seek his glory; that 
we shall love him, honour him, and treat him as our God ; 
that we shall be penitent for our past sins, and be willing 
to accept his favour on his own terms; that we shall be 
serious, religious, prayerful, believing, holy. If this is 
done, he promises heaven. But it is not done. Those now 
referred to do not even lay claim to any of these things. 
One of the last things that they would claim, or that their 
friends would think of claiming for them, is that they are 
religious, or that they act habitually from reference to the 
will of their Creator. They claim to be moral, honest, true, 
urbane, kind, but how can this lay the foundation of a claim 
to the appropriate reward of piety ? How, in these things, 
can they render any service to God, when they do not even 
intend it, which would be the proper basis of his rewarding 
them in heaven ? No more than the day labourer, the 
clerk, and the servant carefully attentive to their own 
interests, but wholly regardless of the interests of their em- 
ployers, can expect a reward. 

Having thus stated these arguments, to show that man 
cannot by any services which he can render, make himself 
so profitable to God as to merit salvation, or be of so much 
advantage to his cause as to be an equivalent for the reward 
of heaven, it remains only to remark, 

(4.) Fourthly, that, if he cannot do this by a life of obe- 
dient holiness, he cannot by any offering which he has it in 
his power to make. The reasons for this are so obvious as 
to make it needless to dwell on them. One is, that no 
offering which man can make, can be of any advantage or 
profit to God. He is made no richer by any oblation of 
silver and gold which we can bring him ; he has no unsat- 
isfied wants which can be supplied by our ministrations. 
" If I were hungry," says he, " I would not tell thee ; for the 
world is mine and the fullness thereof. Will I eat the flesh 
of bulls or drink the blood of goats?" Ps. iv. 12, 13. An- 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 57 

other reason is, that all that we possess is his, and we can 
give to him nothing to which he has not already a prior and 
supreme right. " Every beast of the'' forest," says he, a is 
mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the 
fowls of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the forest are 
mine." Ps. 1. 10, 11. Another reason is, that nothing that 
we could offer would be a compensation for our past offences, 
or repair the evils which we have done by our neglect of 
duty and by our open sins. " Wherewith shall I come be- 
fore the Lord, and bow myself before the High God ? Shall 
I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a 
year old ? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of 
rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall I give 
my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for 
the sin of my soul?" Micah vi. 6, 7. And how shall a 
man profit God ; how lay him under obligation to save him ; 
how render such service as to be an equivalent for heaven ? 
Shall he flagellate his own body ? Yet how will that profit 
God? Shall he gird sackcloth on his loins, or wear an 
irritating haircloth garment to torment himself? Yet how 
will that benefit his Maker ? Will he go on a pilgrimage 
to some distant shrine ? How will his Maker be advantaged 
by that ? Will he shut himself up in a gloomy cell, and 
withdraw from the light of the sun, and the moon, and the 
stars, and from the society of living men, and doom himself 
to wretchedness and wo ? But will his God be made more 
rich, or happy by such austerities ? Will he seize upon the 
objects dearest to his heart, and destroy before bloody altars 
the lives which his Creator has given ? But will it profit 
God if we kill his own creatures, and pour out their blood 
before him ? If none of these things will do, with what 
plea of merit can we come before him ? How can we render 
such service as to have a claim on heaven ? 

In view of this train of thought, two additional observa- 
tions may be made. 



58 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

1. First, we see the falsehood of that system of religion 
which speaks of human merit ; of the treasured and garnered 
merits of the saints of former times. If the principles now 
suggested are correct, how can there have been any such ex- 
traordinary and superabounding merit in past times that it 
may be available now for men ? If there were such trea- 
sured merit left by the saints of other days, it might still be 
a question what claim of right any man has now to distri- 
bute it to others ; but any such claim of superabounding 
merit is alike at variance with the Bible, and with every 
just principle of reason. Yet this doctrine is one of the 
principal supports of the papacy, and is one of the dogmas 
that come to our shores and demand credence in our land, 
and of this generation. It will be shown hereafter, that 
there is ample merit in him who died to atone for our sins, 
to supply all our deficiencies, and the results of which may 
be ours. The claim that superabounding merit has been 
wrought out by the saints, derogates and almost annihilates 
this ; and the claim that his merits and theirs are lodged in 
human hands to be dispensed or withheld at pleasure by a 
priesthood, is one of the principal supports of the most ap- 
palling and terrific system of spiritual despotism that has 
ever tyrannized over man. Thanks to him who has bought 
us our portion, the disposal of the merits of his sacrifice is 
committed to no human hands, and can be interrupted by 
no human power ! 

2. This subject is one of direct practical interest to all. 
If we are ever saved, there will be a good reason for it — for 
nothing is merely arbitrary in the matter of salvation. 
There are but two ways possible of being saved— the one by 
our own merits, the other by the merits of another. If in 
regard to the latter there are no merits of the " saints" on 
which we can rely ; no merits of parents or pious friends 
of which we can avail ourselves, then the merits of the Lord 
Jesus constitute the only foreign dependence which we can 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 59 

have. The whole question is then just this. Do we rely 
on our own merits for salvation, or the merits of Jesus ? 
Here the world is divided — the Christian on the one side; 
the pagan, the Mohammedan, the infidel, the moralist on the 
other. This single question separates the inhabitants of the 
globe into two great parties never to be united. But if the 
principles above suggested are correct, it may be put to 
every man — to his reason, his conscience, his heart, whether 
he has any merit on which he can rely as a ground of salva- 
tion ? Has he done any thing for which the equivalent is 
to be found in the rewards of an eternal heaven ? Has he 
so deserved the rewards of life, has he rendered such services 
to his Maker that he can stand at the final bar, where we 
all must soon stand, and claim an admission to heaven ? 
Can he demand it as a right that heaven's portal should be 
thrown open to him, and he be welcomed there ? If so, on 
what ground ? What is the basis of the claim ? Religion ? 
The unconverted sinner makes no pretension to it. Re- 
pentance ? He has never shed a tear over his sins. The 
love of God ? He has no spark of love to that glorious 
Being in his heart. Sacrifices in his service ? He has 
made none. An honest endeavour to do his will ? He has 
never made this the rule of life. What is the service which 
he has rendered ? What has been the life which he has 
led ? What is the state of his account with God ? What 
is the condition of his heart ? 0, let him look at the broken 
law of God, his violated Sabbaths, his rejected gospel, his 
grieved Spirit, his neglected word ) let him look at his own 
life of thoughtlessness, selfishness, and vanity; his neglect 
of prayer, his pride and opposition to God ) let him look at 
the sins of childhood and the worldliness and wickedness of 
riper years; let him look at the times when God has called 
and he has refused, when the Saviour has stretched out his 
hands and he would not regard it ; let him look at his broken 
vows and promises, the times when he promised that he 



60 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

would be a Christian if he reached a certain period of life, 
the solemn covenant which he made when he was sick, that 
if God would spare him he would be his ) let him look at 
these things and then see whether he has a claim to an ad- 
mission to heaven, and whether he can be received there 
because he has been profitable to God. 

V. What is meant by the merits of Christ ? 

There are few phrases in more common use than the 
merits of Christ ; few declarations that are repeated more 
frequently by ministers of the gospel and others, than that 
man can be saved only by His merits ; and few things that 
are more frequently uttered in prayer than that we plead 
His merits only for our salvation. The frequency with 
which this expression occurs, and the bearing which it has 
on the general subject now under consideration, make it 
proper that we should attempt an explanation of it. Com- 
mon as the use of it is, a formal attempt to explain it is not 
often made, and it is to be feared that it is often used with- 
out an intelligent apprehension of its meaning. 

The phrase does not occur in the Bible; but the idea 
which is intended to be conveyed by it exists there as a 
vital and central thought in the whole plan of justification 
by faith. In the prosecution of this subject it will be 
proper, 

1. To explain what is meant when we speak of the merits 
of Christ; and 

2. To show in what his merits consisted. 

1. What is meant by the merits of Christ ? 

The general idea is expressed in the passage — John i. 16 : 
"and of his fulness have we all received, and grace for 
for grace." There was an "abundance" or "fulness" in 
him of which we might partake ; that is, there was a com- 
pleteness — nXyjpw/ia — which, in our conscious want or defi- 
ciency, could meet all our necessities, so that we could re- 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 61 

ceive " grace" corresponding with that which was in him. 
When we speak of the merits of Christ in connection with 
our salvation, it is meant that there was an amount of merit 
in his services which he did not need for any personal ad- 
vantage or for himself; which had been secured with a 
special purpose to supply the great and undisputed defi- 
ciency of man, and which can be made available to us on 
certain conditions, and in the way which God has revealed 
as the ground of our acceptance. The main object is not 
now to prove that there are such merits treasured up in 
Christ, but to explain the language. Whether the doctrine 
be true, and if there be such merit in him, how it may be 
available to us, will be the subject of future inquiry. In 
the explanation of the subject we may then advert to, 

(1.) The doctrine respecting merit laid down in the 
last section. A man merits a reward when he has earned 
or deserved it; when he has fully complied with the 
terms of the bargain ; when his services are worth as much 
to you as you pay him. We may recall the illustrations 
from the day-labourer, the soldier, the physician, in each of 
which cases it was said that the service rendered was fully 
equal in value to the pay which was given. The service 
measures the pay ; the one is equal, or is supposed to be, to 
the other. To withhold the compensation is injustice, or 
is palpably wrong. This is the ordinary and proper sense 
in which the word merit is used among men, and it was in 
this sense that we endeavoured to show that man cannot 
merit salvation. We observe, 

(2.) That cases may arise where much more maybe done 
for you than one who is in your employ is strictly bound to 
perform. A reference to some of these cases will enable us 
to explain the subject before us. 

(a) You have a man in your employ engaged under the 
ordinary condition of service as a labourer or clerk. With- 
out any special agreement with him, or without any thing 



62 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

being said about it in your contract, lie is to do what is 
commonly understood to be required in that condition of 
life ; what is usually done by those in the same employ- 
ment. He is to be at his post at a certain hour in the 
morning, and to remain until a certain hour in the evening, 
and is to be faithful to his employer's interest, and diligent 
in the prosecution of the business entrusted to him. On 
these conditions, without any thing more specific, the con- 
tract is usually made with clerks, and book-keepers, and 
day-labourers, and journeymen-mechanics, and lawyers and 
ministers of the gospel. It is not deemed necessary to be 
any more specific than that they shall be faithful to the 
interests of their employers, and render the amount of ser- 
vice which is usually expected in that occupation. But it 
is very possible to conceive that one may go much beyond 
that. He may be engaged at a much earlier hour than is 
usual, and may prolong his toils far into the shades of night. 
He may evince uncommon tact and sagacity in the manage- 
ment of affairs entrusted to him, and such may be his skill 
and success that his services may have a value far beyond 
any thing which you had anticipated in the contract. You 
would not feel yourself at liberty to turn him off, or to com- 
plain if he had not done this ; will not feel that he has a legal 
claim on you for any thing more than you promised to pay 
him, for you did not contract with him for this special ser- 
vice ; but you will be likely to feel that he has a claim of 
honour on you; and if, when he leaves your service, you 
know of any situation of special advantage that can be ob- 
tained, you would feel yourself under a sort of moral obli- 
gation to endeavour to secure it for him. Here is some- 
thing merited beyond what he was hound to do. 

(h) A second case. A man in your employ may be 
placed in circumstances where he may have an opportunity 
of doing something for your special advantage, though of a 
nature which was not distinctly specified in your contract 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOB? 63 

with him. He may have great sagacity, and may watch 
the changes and chances in the market, and enable you to 
make important and advantageous purchases ) he may be in 
possession of intelligence respecting coming changes in the 
markets which may be of great service to you ; or he may, 
by uncommon tact in business, be enabled to save you from 
inextricable bankruptcy. Now, if he is a mere book-keeper, 
or salesman, you could hardly claim, as a matter of right, 
that he should bring his sagacity in these things into your 
service; perhaps you would hardly blame him if he took 
advantage of it to advance his own interests, provided he 
did not injure you. His specific business is to keep your 
books correctly, or to sell your goods in the manner in which 
you shall direct him, and his sagacity and tact in these de- 
partments you have a right to require to be employed in 
your service. But your contract and your claim extend no 
farther. Yet, if he chooses to go beyond this, and actually, 
while he incurs no possible risks, is the means of great ad- 
vantage to you, an honourable man would feel that he de- 
served an appropriate acknowledgment. Many instances of 
this kind might be referred to ; but these will illustrate the 
point under consideration. 

(3.) It is necessary to make but one other remark, in 
order to see the bearing of these illustrations on the case 
before us. Reference has been made to abounding merit ; 
to cases in which service is rendered beyond what was in the 
contract ; to that which was wholly voluntary, and yet where 
there would be a claim in honour, at least, for a suitable 
acknowledgment, or where an honourable man would feel 
himself under obligation to bestow a reward. The remark 
which is now to be made, is that he who has this extra 
claim on you may do what he pleases with the reward which 
you may feel willing to give. It may not be needful for 
him, or he may not choose to make use of it for himself, 
but he may be disposed to make another use of it, which 



64 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

will develop some trait of mind that will by no means di- 
minish your respect for his character. Suppose some such 
cases as the following in the application of the instances re- 
ferred to : that he should ask you to aid a younger brother 
of his that was just beginning business, and who was 
greatly in need of credit; or that, on the supposition that he 
should die, you would show kindness to an aged father or 
mother ; or that you should appropriate the gratuity which 
you designed for him to some young man who was strug- 
gling to obtain an education. Or, suppose that the faithful 
servant should ask you to release from bondage his wife or 
child, in consideration of the extra and quite equivalent 
services which he had rendered to you. Or, to take another 
case, suppose a friend of his had, in an unhappy moment, 
defrauded you, might he not ask you to " set that to his 
account f" In either case, would you not feel that what he 
asked he had a right to ask ? And would you not be the 
more deeply affected with respect for his character by this 
request ? He did not perform the extra service for reward. 
He did not expect it. He did not mention it to you. He 
did not claim any reward. But when you felt that he had 
a claim to it, and pressed it upon him, and would not be 
refused, he looked not for gorgeous or gay apparel for him- 
self, or for a purse of gold, or a splendid house ; nor did he 
ask you to trumpet his fame ; but he looked round on those 
struggling with poverty, crushed and enfeebled by age, 
bound in affliction and iron, or burdened with debts, which 
they could never discharge, and asked you to forget him 
and to remember them. The developments of such a cha- 
racter would fill your mind with new conceptions of its 
beauty, and your heart would be insensibly knit with his. 

It will be perceived that these illustrations bear on the 
explanation of what is meant by the merits of Christ. His 
merit was of this extraordinary or superabundant kind. It 
was beyond what could have been demanded of him, and 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 65 

was such that if he chose to ask it, or so designed it, it 
could be made available to others. This leads us to 

2. The inquiry, in what his merits consisted. Keep- 
ing the remarks already made in view, it will be neces- 
sary to show that all that he did when on earth was of 
this extraordinary character ; that he rendered real service 
to the universe for which the rewards given him will be no 
more than equivalent ; and that his merits were of such a 
nature that they may be made available to others. 

(1.) All that he did was of an extraordinary character, 
or was service which could not have been demanded of him. 
This remark is based on the fact that he was divine, and has 
no pertinency except on that supposition. When it is said 
that his service, or work, was such as could not be demanded, 
it is meant that there was no law or obligation which could 
bind the Divinity to become incarnate, to be an humble 
teacher of mankind, to minister to their wants with his own 
hands, or to make an atonement for their transgressions. 
The entire transaction was of a kind which could be enforced 
by no law. If He be equal to the Father and one with him, 
he was under no law but the infinite and eternal law of his 
own divine nature. There was no obligation on him to be- 
come a man, a priest, a sacrifice ) to toil, to weep, to die. 

Another illustration may be introduced here. There is 
an heir apparent to a crown. Every consideration of pro- 
priety, and perhaps a statute law of the realm, require him 
to perform the duties of a son in the palace, and to appear 
and act on all occasions as becomes the first man in the 
realm next to the throne. But there is no law which re- 
quires him to become a day-labourer, or a menial, or that 
makes it his duty to go into some peasant's cottage and watch 
the long night by the cradle of a dying child. There maybe, 
perhaps, no law against it if he chooses to do it ; but it cannot 
be demanded of him. The Son of God m heaven would 

appear there always in a manner appropriate to his une- 

6* 



66 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

quailed relation to the Father; but what law was there 
requiring him to come down to earth, to be a man of sor- 
rows, to take part in our sadnesses and woes and to die ? 
If he did this, the service was altogether of an extraordi- 
nary character, and was entirely a work of merit. This 
remark is obvious. Its bearings, if conceded to be true, 
are of great importance. The force and pertinence of this 
illustration, as has been already remarked, proceeds on the 
supposition that he is divine. If he is not, however ex- 
alted as a created being he may be, it does not appear how 
he could have any extra merit, and consequently how the 
doctrine of justification by his righteousness could be held. 
If he is a mere man, or an angel, or an archangel, or crea- 
ture of any rank, no such extraordinary service could be 
rendered — none could be made available to us. 

We have seen that man may acquire extra merit from his 
fellow-man, merit which may be made available to others. 
The question is, why a creature may not do this in reference 
to the service of God ; and why, if the Saviour were less 
than divine, he might not do the same thing for us ? The 
answer to this question is obvious. When you employ a 
man, you contract for a certain amount of service or of 
time. You do not contract for all that he has. You con- 
tract for what is usual, or what you specify. All beyond 
the limits of that contract remains his. But there is no 
such contract, understanding or stipulation, express or un- 
derstood, between a creature and God. All his powers, his 
time, his talents, his service, his skill, his learning, his in- 
fluence, belong to his Maker. Of every creature, he de- 
mands " all the heart, the mind, the might, the strength." 
There is not a moment of time in which a creature can feel 
that he is released from the claim of his Maker ; there is not a 
power or faculty of mind or body which he possesses, that is 
beyond the range of the demand of His law ; there is not a 
service of prayer, or praise, or sacrifice, which he could render 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 67 

which is beyond the limits of his duty ; there is not an act 
of benevolence to the poor, the needy, the sinful, or the 
dying, he can perform, which he can feel is beyond the 
ail-comprehensive grasp of the divine command to do 
good. Can a creature of the Almighty put himself into 
the midst of a service acceptable to God which he will feel 
was not required of him ? Can he love with an ardour 
beyond what God requires ? Can he maintain a degree of 
fidelity in temptation beyond what is demanded ? Can he 
stoop to some scene of wo, and do good to a sufferer in a 
way which the law which binds him to God did not make 
his duty? Can he evince compassion for the sinful and 
the sad beyond what the law of his nature and the com- 
mandment of his Maker demands ? If he cannot, how can 
there be such extra merit that it can be made available to 
others ? And if the Lord Jesus were a mere man, as one 
class of Socinians tells us ) or an angel of exalted rank, as 
another class assures us ; or the highest created intelli- 
gence, as the Arian affirms, how could he have wrought out 
any merit which could be available to us ? How could he 
have done any thing beyond what he was bound as a crea- 
ture to do ? How could he so step beyond the limits of 
the divine law, as by abounding merit, to save a world. It 
is difficult to see, therefore, how he who denies the divinity 
of the Lord Jesus can hold to the doctrine of a meritorious 
sacrifice on his part, or to the doctrine of justification 
through his merits at all ; and there is a melancholy con- 
sistency in the philosophy and practical faith of those who 
deny his divinity, in yielding up the doctrine of the atone- 
ment, and then the whole doctrine of justification by faith. 
But admit that he is God, equal with the Father, and all is 
clear. Then, being under no obligations to become incar- 
nate, being bound by no law to leave the throne of heaven 
and seek a home in a manger, a lodging place without a 
pillow, a death on a cross, and a burial in the grave des- 



68 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

tined for another, all this is the work of extra merit, and 
may all be available for others. We see him in our world, 
not as a mere man, and thus bound by law to render every 
service to the cause of God, but as Immanuel — God with 
us — the voluntary messenger from heaven — the equal with 
God, performing a service to which no law bound him, and 
to which no other powers were adequate, and which there- 
fore may constitute a fulness of merit which may be avail- 
able for those who have none. 

(2.) The second remark is, that he rendered real service 
to the universe by his work. His coming, his teaching, his 
death, his resurrection, were an advantage to the cause of 
God and of virtue, to the full extent of the reward which he 
will receive. The universe has been so much profited by 
his voluntary and wonderful service in the cause of virtue 
and salvation, that there is a propriety that he should be 
rewarded for it, and the reward which he will receive is no 
more than an equivalent for the value of the service ren- 
dered. It will be asked, What has been the advantage of 
his work to the universe ? In what way is it to be mea- 
sured or estimated ? It may be replied, We do not know 
fully yet, nor are our minds in a condition now, if they will 
ever be, to estimate what is appropriate to " satisfy" him for 
the " travail of his soul." But the general answer, whoever 
can appreciate its meaning, will be that the value or worth 
of his voluntary services is to be estimated by all the evils 
which his coming has arrested or prevented, and by all 
the happiness in this world and in heaven of which it has 
been the cause. If we could ascertain this, we could esti- 
mate the extent of his services to the universe, and of 
course the reward which is due him, or the amount of 
his merit. No attempt can be made by us to gauge the 
amount of this merit. All that can be done is to submit a 
few hints to illustrate the real nature of the service which 
he rendered. 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 69 

(a) He did voluntary good through his life. He healed 
the sick ; gave sight to the blind ; hearing to the deaf, and 
vigour to the lame ; he restored the maniac to his right 
mind, and brought back the poor outcast who " dwelt among 
the tombs" to the comforts of home. All this was doing 
good to the world, which if he had not come would not have 

been done. 

(6) He set a most holy example of virtue to mankind. 
He showed what true virtue is ; how man should live, and 
how he should meet the temptations of the great enemy of 
the soul. All this is so much gained to the cause of virtue, 
above what would have been if he had not come— and the 
value of having one perfect example in a world where there 
had been no such standard, and amidst the conflicting 
opinions of men on the subject of morals, cannot be esti- 
mated. 

(c) He taught man by his example how to bear trials. 
He himself went through all the usual forms of wo and 
grief, and showed in each one of them, how man ought to 
endure calamities, and how in them consolation might be 
found. But who in a suffering and dying world can esti- 
mate the value of such an example ? 

(d) He taught man the true character of God; the nature 
of his law 5 the kind of worship that would be acceptable to 
him, and the way in which the throne of mercy may be ap- 
proached. But who can estimate the value to a sinful 
world of the knowledge of the way of pardon ? 

(e) He introduced a religion which has contributed every- 
where to the promotion of industry, purity, chastity, truth, 
honesty, intelligence, and liberty ; which has raised one sex 
from the deepest degradation, and softened the asperities, 
and removed the tyranny of the other ; which has led to the 
founding of hospitals and asylums, and which will ultimately 
put an end to all the forms of evil and vice which tyrannize 



70 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

over man ; and who can gauge the amount of service which 
he has thus rendered to man and to the universe ? 

(/) He made an atonement for sin — his greatest, noblest 
work. He vindicated by his death the honour and the law 
of God ; and solved the question which has everywhere con- 
founded the human intellect, how justice and mercy can 
meet together, and how righteousness can be maintained and 
yet the sinner go free. He secured to the universe by his 
death, all the advantages which could have been secured by 
the everlasting punishment of the sinner himself, and all 
the advantages which now result from admitting to heaven 
countless millions, who, but for his sacrifice, would have 
been eternally wretched : and what finite mind can estimate 
the value of this service rendered to the universe ? 

(jf) He checks evil by his gospel and his grace, and turns 
the disobedient to the paths of virtue. Take one single ex- 
ample as an illustration of the amount of service which he 
rendered — the case of Saul of Tarsus. Think of what he 
would have been with his extraordinary talents, his uncom- 
mon learning, his vast energy of character, his restless 
ambition, and his proud and self-confident heart, if there 
had been no atonement, and then of what he was after he 
was converted to the cause of virtue and of truth. Think 
of his influence while he lived, in meeting the evils and cor- 
ruptions of idolatry, in closing temples of polluted worship, 
in purifying the fountains of morals, and in diffusing abroad 
the principles of pure religion. Think of the good which 
has been done since his time, by his incomparable writings 
in maintaining the truth, and imparting consolation in a 
world of sorrow, and see in the conversion of that man an 
instance of the kind of service which the Lord Jesus ren- 
dered to the universe. Then reflect that the case of Saul 
of Tarsus is but one of many hundreds of millions — indi- 
vidually less bright, but in the aggregate outshining his, as 
the mingled light of the galaxy is of greater glory than the 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 71 

twinkling of a single star : and then ask who can estimate 
the amount of service which the Son of Grod has rendered 
to the universe ? All that has been done by his holy life 
and example ; all that has been accomplished on earth by 
the influence of his religion; all that his death did to 
honour the divine law ; all that has been or will be done by 
arresting evil and staying the desolations of sin; all the 
additions which have been or will be made by redemption, 
to the numbers of the heavenly host, and all the immortal 
songs and joys of the redeemed in heaven; all these things 
are to be taken into this estimate, and will be the measure 
of the voluntary service rendered to the universe' by the Son 
of God. It remains only, in order to a complete explanation 
of the subject, to add, 

(3.) That all the merit of his work — all the reward 
which he deserved, is available to others. It is that 
superabounding service which has been before referred to, 
which can be appropriated in any way that he shall ask. 
Not needing it for himself, for he dwells in u the glory 
which he had with the Father before the world was," it 
can be appropriated to those who are poor and needy, and 
destitute of any claim of merit. The reward for all his ex- 
traordinary service may be such as he shall wish, and his 
heart will not ask augmented glory for himself in heaven as 
divine, but will seek it in the elevation and immortal felicity 
of the poor and lost upon the earth for whom he died. By 
such a reward the universe will lose nothing, but will on 
every account be a gainer, and the benevolent heart which 
rendered these extraordinary services, may be abundantly 
satisfied by asking that the "lost may be saved." It was 
on grounds like these that it was said in the promise, "Ask 
of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inherit- 
ance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy posses- 
sion." Ps. ii. 8. Thus too the promise was, "he shall see 
of the travail of his soul f J the fruit of his wearisome sor- 



72 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD ? 

row, "and shall be satisfied." Isa. liii. 11. Thus too, in 
asking in his parting prayer, that his work on earth might 
be remembered, he could use with propriety the strong lan- 
guage when he said, " Father, I will that they also whom 
thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may 
behold my glory which thou hast given me." John xvii. 24. 
To secure their salvation and the universal spread of his 
gospel, he can urge the extraordinary claim of the service 
which he has rendered by his life of spotless virtue, his pure 
example, his relief of human woes, and the sorrows which 
he voluntarily endured, in order that the law of God might 
be maintained, and eternal justice asserted even when salva- 
tion was offered to men. 

If these views are correct, then it follows 

1. That we are to look nowhere else than to Christ as the 
meritorious cause of salvation. Had it been possible for 
any mere created being to have wrought out sufficient merit t 
to save the soul, the incarnation of the Son of God, and his 
death on Calvary would never have occurred. The moment 
it is maintained that man may merit salvation for himself or 
for others, the doctrine of the atonement is denied, and the 
work of Christ dishonoured; and the doctrine that there are 
anywhere or in any hands garnered up the merits of holy 
men, of which we can avail ourselves, derogates to just the 
extent in which it is held, from the great sacrifice, and is 
an attack on the fundamental doctrines of the gospel. In 
our hopes of salvation we have but one place to which to 
look. It is not what our own hands have done, or what has 
been done by holy men of other times, it is the infinite 
merit of the Son of God. 

2. The merits of the Saviour are sufficient for the salva- 
tion of all mankind. If the view which has been taken is 
correct, it is clear that the benefit which he has rendered to 
the universe by his holy obedience and death, are commen- 
surate with any rewards which he may receive in connection 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 73 

with the salvation of men. "It pleased the Father that in 
him" in every respect, "should all fulness dwell/' and 
alike in his power, his benevolence, his willingness to save, 
and the merits of his work, there is an ample sufficiency for 
the wants of all mankind. Needing none of the results of 
his great work on earth, for the promotion of his own hap- 
piness, all that he did may be made available to others, and 
all men may come with equal freeness and confidence. He 
had the promise of an ample and satisfactory reward when 
it was said that he " should see of the travail of his soul and 
should be satisfied," and on the basis of that promise he 
himself uses such language as this, " If any man thirst, let 
him come unto me and drink ;" " Come unto me all ye that 
are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest;" and 
" whosoever will, let him come and take the waters of life 
freely." There was no original deficiency in the merits of 
the Saviour for human salvation, nor has his merit been ex- 
hausted by the numbers that have already been saved. 
Salvation in him is like a copious fountain breaking out in 
a desert. Such a fountain is free for all who may come. 
It stands in the pathway where the multitude move — where 
the caravans pass along, and no one has a right to appro- 
priate it to himself. No tribe of men may inclose it or may 
obstruct its waters. One company of weary travellers has 
as much right there as another, and to no one particularly 
appertains the office of dispensing it to the fainting pilgrim. 
Any one who will come and kneel down there may drink 
freely. And it will never be exhausted. The fountain will 
pour out its waters from age to age. The present company 
of thirsty travellers will soon pass on. They will pursue 
their journey and go off to die, but then the stream will 
flow on unexhausted and inexhaustible to the end of time. 
So it is with the fountain of salvation. As many of the 
present generation as choose may come and partake, and 
then as many of the next, and the next, and still the foun- 



74 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

tain will flow on unexhausted and inexhaustible. It will 
flow just as fresh and just as full in the last generation that 
lives, as it did in the days of the Saviour's personal resi- 
dence on earth ; as it does now ; and the last sinner that is to 
be saved, will find it as pure and as life-giving to his soul 
as it is to ours. 

YT. In what sense we are justified by the merits of Christ. 

In the previous sections, it has been shown that man can- 
not justify himself, and that he has no claim of merit before 
God, but that there is in the Lord Jesus infinite merit of 
such a nature, that it may be made available to us. In the 
prosecution of this general subject, it is proposed now to 
illustrate two points : — 

1. What is meant by justification in the gospel ; and 

2. In what way we are justified by the merits of Christ. 
1. What is meant by justification in the gospel? 

The object here is to state what is the exact condition of 
a man who is justified. In what respect does he differ from 
what he was before ? What change has taken place in refer- 
ence to him ? How is he regarded by his Maker differently 
from what he was before ? What new relation does he sustain 
to God, to his law, and to his plan of providential dealings ? 
These, it will be seen, are important questions which proba- 
bly every one is disposed to ask who attentively considers 
this subject. They are questions, also, on which serious 
mistakes are sometimes made as well by those who attempt 
to explain the subject, as by individual Christians in reflect- 
ing on this new relation. A few remarks, showing what is 
not meant, and what is } will make the subject clear. 

(1.) It is not meant that a man who is justified on the 
gospel plan, is justified in a legal sense. What it is to be 
so justified has been before explained. It is when a man is 
accused of a crime, and is able to vindicate himself either 
by showing that he did not do the act charged on him, or 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 75 

that he has a right to do it. If he can do either of these 
things, or, which is the same thing, if the charge is not 
proved against him, he is acquitted Joy the law, or is held to 
be righteous in regard to the offence charged. In the pre- 
vious sections it has been shown that, in this sense, man 
cannot be justified before God, and whatever may be thought 
of the argument in the case, it is certain that this is not 
the kind of justification described in the gospel. It is need- 
ful here to remark, only, that Christ did not come to aid man 
in justifying himself m this sense. He did not come to take 
the part of the sinner against God, and to enable him to 
make out his cause. He did not come to be his advocate in 
the sense of assisting him in rebutting the charges made 
against him ; in showing that the charges had been falsely 
laid ; in explaining his conduct so that it might not appear 
to be wrong; or in offering palliations for admitted crimi- 
nality. Whatever be the nature of the work which the 
Lord Jesus came to perform, and however he may aid us in 
our salvation, it is all done with the concession on his part, 
that we are guilty to the full extent which the law charges 
on us. 

(2.) It is not, in any proper sense, a legal transaction. 
Justification by the law is known only in one way — by per- 
fect and uniform obedience. The law of God, in conform- 
ity with the general principles of law, knows no other mode. 
It riiakes no provision for the pardon or justification of those 
who violate it, any more than a human law does. The 
plan of justification in the gospel is a departure from the 
regular process of law ; and whatever inferences may follow 
from this, either against the system or in favour of it, the 
fact is not to be denied. " But now," says the apostle 
Paul, " the righteousness of God without the law is mani- 
fested m " that is, the method of justification in a way dif- 
ferent from that known in the law. Rom. iii. 21. All at- 
tempts to show that the plan of justification in the gospel 



76 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

is a legal transaction, or is in accordance with legal princi- 
ples, have been signal failures, and if there can be no other 
justification than that which is properly legal, the whole 
effort to be saved must be given up in despair. Nor does it 
mean, 

(3.) That the man who is justified ceases to be ill-de- 
serving or guilty in the proper sense of the word. When 
a man is justified by law, he is declared to be not guilty 
or ill-deserving. But it is not so when a man is jus- 
tified by the gospel. It is expressly said, respecting this 
plan, that God justifies the ungodly," (Rom. iv. 5,) mean- 
ing that it is admitted they are ungodly at the time, or that 
they are personally guilty. The act of justification does 
not change the nature of the offence, or prove that to be 
right which is in itself wrong. Crime is what it is in its own 
nature, and is not modified by the manner in which he who 
commits it is treated. To pardon a man out of the penitentiary 
does not prove that the act of burglary or theft for which 
he was committed was innocent ; to forgive a man under the 
gallows does not prove that he is not ill-deserving for the act 
of murder. To be led from any consideration to treat a 
man who has injured us as if he had not done it, does not 
prove that the act was not wrong ; or that he should not 
regard himself as blameworthy for having done it. Our 
kind treatment of him will not be likely, in any degree, to 
diminish his sense of his criminality, and the act of pardon 
with which an offender against God is met when penitent, 
will not lessen his sense of his own guilt. God never comes 
in the act of justification to convince him that he has not 
done wrong, but to save him, though it is admitted that he 
is a great sinner, and the consciousness that he is a sinner 
will attend him and humble him through life. He will lift 
up his eyes and his heart with thankfulness that he is a par- 
doned man ; not with pride and self-complacency, that he 
is an innocent man. He will have the spirit of the publi- 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD ? 77 

can, not of the Pharisee. The publican that went down 
to his house justified would not go feeling that he was in- 
nocent ; he would be filled with gratitude that so great 
a sinner might be forgiven. 

(4.) Justification in the gospel does not mean mere par- 
don. It has been supposed by many that this is all that is 
denoted by it. But there are insuperable objections to this 
opinion. One is, that it is a departure from the common use 
of language. When a man who has been sentenced to the 
penitentiary is pardoned before the term of his sentence is 
expired, we never think of saying that he is justified. The 
offence is forgiven, and the penalty is remitted ; but the use 
of the word justify in his case would convey a very differ- 
ent idea from the word pardon. Another objection is, that 
the sacred writers have so carefully and so constantly used 
the word justify. If mere pardon or forgiveness were all 
that is intended, it is difficult to see why another word has 
been constantly employed, and a word so different in its sig- 
nification. And another objection is, that mere forgiveness 
is not all which the case seems to demand. There was re- 
quired a reinstating in the favour of God ; a restoration to 
forfeited immunities and privileges, and a purpose in regard 
to future treatment which is not necessarily involved in the 
word pardon. It may be conceived that, in cases of pardon 
for high offences, there would be required, in order to meet 
all the circumstances of the case, not only a remission of 
the penalty, but a distinct act restoring to the offender or 
his family his title, his hereditary honours, and his place in 
civil relations. The pardon of Lord Bacon would not have 
restored him at once to the bench, nor the forgiveness of 
Raleigh to his station in the court of Elizabeth. In the 
case of a sinner against God, pardon respects mainly the 
past; justification the purpose of God in reference to the 
future. Forgiveness remits past crimes; justification re- 
spects the purpose of God to treat the offender as if he had 



/ 

78 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

not sinned, — and though these may be simultaneous, yet 
they may be separated in conception as distinct things. The 
one forgives the past ; the other reinstates the offender in 
the lost favour of God. 

(5.) It is not meant that, in the act of justification, the 
merits of the Lord Jesus become so transferred to us that 
they can be regarded as literally ours, or that his righteous- 
ness is in any proper sense our own. This is not true, and 
cannot be made to be true. Moral character is not capable 
of being transferred from one individual to another ; and 
however the benefits of what one does may be conveyed to 
another, it will always be true that the character of an indi- 
vidual is what it is in itself. It will always be true that 
Christ, and not we, obeyed perfectly the law of God 5 that 
Christ, and not his people, died on the cross ; and that the 
merit of his life and death is strictly his, and not theirs. 
It will always be true, also, that they violated the law of 
God; that their characters were sinful, and that they 
deserved not the mercy of God. No man can really be- 
lieve that the moral character of one individual can be 
transferred to another, and no one should charge the Bible 
with inculcating any such doctrine either with respect to the 
effect of Adam's transgression on his posterity, or the right- 
eousness of the Redeemer in the salvation of his people. 
We are prepared now to remark positively, 

(6.) That justification on the gospel plan denotes a pur- 
pose on the part of God to treat a sinner as if lie were right- 
eous. It implies an intention not to punish him for his 
sins; not to regard him as any longer under condemnation; 
not to treat him as an alien, an apostate, and an outcast ; but 
to regard and treat him in the future, in all his important 
relations, as if he had never sinned. It involves the pur- 
pose to shield him from the condemning sentence of the 
law and the wrath that shall come upon the guilty ; to ad- 
mit him to the fellowship of unfallen beings; to regard 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 79 

him as entitled to all the privileges of a child of God, as 
if he had not fallen ; to throw around him the segis of the 
divine protection and favour to the end of the present life, 
and then to admit him to immortal life in heaven. These 
things would have been his if he had not fallen ; and these 
things are now made his in virtue of the merits of the Re- 
deemer. In all his great relations, in all the most perma- 
nent and important things that affect him, he is } and is to 
be, as if he had not sinned. The main evils of the apos- 
tacy in his care are arrested, and it is the, purpose to regard 
and to treat him as a child of Grod. 

It is important to remark that, in these statements, it is 
not designed to affirm that, in all respects, the act of justi- 
fication places a man in precisely the same situation in which 
he would have been if he had not sinned. It is, indeed, 
designed to teach that, in the direct divine dealings with 
him, he will be regarded and treated as if he were person- 
ally righteous. But why, then, it will be asked, does he 
suffer and die ? Why is he not removed to heaven, as 
Enoch and Elijah were, without seeing death ? Why does 
the justified man ever pass through severe bodily trials, like 
Job or Hezekiah ) or experience the evils of poverty and 
want, like Lazarus ; or why is he called to part with be- 
loved children ; or to be thrown into prison, or to lie down 
in the sorrow of the most painful form of death, as thou- 
sands have already done, and as the children of God now 
often do ? 

It is necessary to make such exceptions or qualifications as 
these in explaining the nature of justification. Though 
justified, man is not, in fact, treated in this world, in all 
respects, as he would have been if he had not sinned. In 
the life to come he will be. But nothing is plainer than 
that, in the present life, things occur, in reference to the 
treatment of those who are justified, which would not have 
occurred if man had not sinned, and which will not occur 



80 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD ? 

in heaven. Poverty, sickness, bereavement, death, and kin- 
dred evils, come upon the righteous and the wicked, the 
saint and the sinner, the man who is justfied and the man 
who is not. These evils are, indeed, softened and miti- 
gated by religion, and may be among the means by which 
the justified man is better prepared for heaven, but still 
they exist as evils ; and are to be regarded as among the 
fruits of sin not removed by the act of justification, and as 
furnishing the exceptions or qualifications alluded to when 
it is said that, in this life, the justified man is not treated 
in all respects as if he had not sinned. The reasons why 
the evils of sin are not entirely arrested by the act of justi- 
fication, and why the believer is not treated in this life, in 
all respects, as if he had not sinned, seem to be principally 
two : — 

(a) One is, that it is not the nature of religion to arrest or 
change the operation of physical laws. It will have an 
indirect and gradual effect in checking some of those laws ; 
but to have made that effect direct and immediate, would 
have required a constant miracle. It is not the design of 
religion to restore health or property which have been wasted 
by dissipation ; to check the results of vice in those who 
have been led astray by evil example, or to stay the effects 
of a life of guilt on our physical frame. A life of virtue 
will ultimately do much to accomplish this; but to do it at 
once would require the physical power of a miracle. For 
the same reason, to be justified does not save from tempo- 
ral, death, and death in accordance with the laws of our 
physical being. No one can doubt that God could have 
saved us from this, but it would be easy to suggest reasons 
why it has not been done. 

(6) Another reason why the act of justification does not 
secure the same treatment in all respects here as if man had 
never sinned, is that he who is justified, and who is at heart 
a true believer, is often in circumstances where he needs 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOB? 81 

the discipline of the hand of God. He is not at once made 
perfect ) and his imperfections, his wanderings, his neglect 
of duty, his worldliness, often demand the interposition of 
God for his own good in a way which would neither be ne- 
cessary nor proper in the case of one who had never sinned. 
Hence if the Christian sins, he may be recalled even by 
stripes. Hence he comes under the regular physical laws 
of the divine administration in the world. Hence he is 
sick or bereaved. Hence, like other men, he may be cut 
off by the pestilence, may be swallowed up in the promis- 
cuous ruin of an earthquake, or lie down on a bed of long 
and lingering disease, and die. Here, he is subject to the 
physical laws of our being, and to the administration of a 
wise discipline ; in the world to come he will be treated 
altogether as if he had never sinned. No distinction 
will be made between him and unfallen beings, nor will 
there be any such remembrance of his own former guilt 
that he will occupy a less elevated position, or have less 
ready access to the throne than if he had never been a 
transgressor. 

It was proposed 

2. To show how justification is accomplished through 
the merits of Christ, or how his merits become available 
to us for this purpose. It is not uncommon to say, in 
explaining this, that his righteousness is imputed to us, 
or that it becomes ours. But, as this language to many 
minds does not convey a very definite conception, and as 
on other minds it often conveys erroneous impressions, and 
seems to be irreconcilable with the common notions of men 
about moral character, it is necessary to explain in what 
sense we become justified by the merits of Christ. Per- 
haps in doing this, also, it may be shown that, so far from 
being contrary to the common notions of men about what is 
right and proper, it is, in fact, but carrying out, on the most 
elevated scale possible, what is practically occurring every 



82 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

day in the common relations and transactions of life. It is 
to be observed then, 

(1.) That we are often benefitted by what others have 
done. The meaning is, that what they have done is of the 
same advantage to us, for certain ends, as if we had done it 
ourselves. A case or two, taken from familiar transactions, 
will illustrate what is meant, and help to a proper explana- 
tion of the subject. Take the case of a father and a son. 
The reputation of the one is often a passport or recom- 
mendation to the other of very great value as he enters on 
life. The son has, as yet, no known character, no acquaint- 
ance with the world, no credit. The father has all these. 
He is widely known as a man of virtue ; he has an exten- 
sive and honoured circle of acquaintance ; he has ample 
credit in the business in which he is engaged. Now, while 
it is true that this character and credit belong to the father 
as his own, and cannot be literally transferred to the son, it 
is also true that, for certain purposes, it may be made to 
answer the same ends for him as if it were his own. Un- 
less by his own misconduct he shall forfeit the advantage 
which he might derive from it, it will be a passport to him 
as he enters on life ; it will go before him preparing many 
hearts to greet him with kindness ; it will obtain for him 
the confidence of others ) it may be the means of securing 
for him many a friend and helper when calamities come, 
even when his father lies in the grave. While it will al- 
ways be true that all the merit and the credit appertain to 
his father, and while whatever may be his own subsequent 
worth, he will cherish a deep and abiding impression of 
that, it is also true that, for certain purposes, he could have 
derived no higher advantages in the case, if the character 
and the credit had been his own. It would not, indeed, 
to all intents and purposes be the same ; but there are great 
and valuable ends in his passage through the world, which 
could be no better secured if all this had been his own. 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 83 

The influence of his father's name and character, unless he 
forfeits the advantage, will attend him far on, perhaps 
entirely through, the journey of life. 

Take another common case. A young man embarks in 
business without capital. He has acquired already, it may 
be, a character for industry, talent and honesty; but he has 
no means by which he can commence the business of his 
life. What he wants now is credit. If he had that he 
would be sure of success. But he has none, as yet, of his 
own. He has had no opportunity to make himself known 
to secure the extensive confidence of his fellow-men. You 
have had such an opportunity and have done it. To a cer- 
tain extent and for certain purposes, you allow him to make 
use of your name. You endorse his paper, and agree to 
be responsible for him. Now this, to him, in the case re- 
ferred to, is of just as much value as though the credit at- 
tached to your name were his. It will be worth as much to 
him in the particular matter referred to as though he him- 
self earned all the influence attached to that name, and 
secured, by a long and upright life, the credit which it con- 
veys. There will be, indeed, in other respects, important 
points of difference, but not in the immediate use which he 
designs to make of the name. He will have a very lively 
sense of the truth that he himself has not this credit ; that 
he is unknown, and that he is under the deepest obligations 
to you. He will never so far mistake the matter as to sup- 
pose that your moral character and worth are transferred to 
him, or that he can regard either as, in any proper sense, his 
own; but he will consider that this is available for just the 
purposes for which he wants it. It is all he needs to secure 
the grand object of his life, and is as good to him as if it 
were his own. 

Further : if we would look over society, we should 
find that this arrangement prevails everywhere, and that 
we are indebted to it every day. It may be doubtful 



84 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

whether we live a single hour, or execute a single plan 
of life, without being more or less indebted to it. It is an 
influence diffused around us like the air we breathe, or the 
sun which shines on our way ; or it is like the tissues of 
the human frame where each part derives benefits in its 
functions from the numerous other parts with which it is 
more or less closely interwoven. It enters into the very 
texture of society that we avail ourselves of the toils, the 
sacrifices, the virtues, and the honoured names of those 
with whom we are connected. No man acquires a name 
for virtue who does not do much to benefit his children and 
friends in this way, and one of the chief stimulants to effort 
in parents is, that they may place their children on as high 
vantage ground as possible when they embark on life. That 
youth enters on life under great disadvantages who cannot 
encircle himself with this influence, and who is constrained 
to " cut his way" to respectability or to wealth alone. As 
a matter of fact, however, there are few that do this. The 
name and influence of a father or a friend ; a letter of com- 
mendation from those who are known and loved, will be a 
passport to us in distant climes, and among strangers ; will 
meet us with its benign influence on the Rhine or the Gan- 
ges ; will help us where we should otherwise fall into the 
hands of freebooters in a foreign land, or when we should 
otherwise sink under poverty and want) or on a distant 
shore will raise up for us a friend on the bed of death. He 
enters life under the best auspices who can avail himself 
most of this without sacrificing his independence or being a 
sycophant or parasite ; and he is the most foolish and un- 
grateful of mankind who would willingly renounce all this 
advantage, and choose to weather the storms of life and 
make his way through the world friendless and alone. 

(2.) The second remark in explaining the way in which 
we are justified by the merits of Christ, is, that there are 
two methods by which we avail ourselves of the benefit of 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 85 

the character and virtues of others. The one is, by natural 
relationship. This occurs in the case of a child, who, as a 
matter of course, derives advantage from the industry, the 
character and the credit of a parent. The other is, by an 
arrangement made for that end. Instances of this latter kind 
occur everywhere. The case of an adopted child is one — a 
case where there is no natural relation, and no natural claim, 
but where one chooses for any reasons, that the child of 
another should be received into his family and treated as if 
he were his own. It occurs not unfrequently in the case of 
a matrimonial alliance, where the one party avails itself of 
the name and influence and rank of the other, and on that 
account has a degree of respect to which, otherwise, there 
would be no claim. It occurs in the cases already referred 
to, where the use of a name is conceded. The name of the 
missionary Schwartz was thus the means of saving from 
starvation the whole of a British garrison, and many a man 
owes his subsequent elevation in life, to assistance furnished 
him at the outset. Cases have arisen where the signet or 
the ring of a prince has been placed in the hands of an- 
other, conveying to him, if danger should befal him, all the 
influence and security which they would to the owner him- 
self; nor is it very uncommon to give a carte blanche to a 
friend to be filled up at pleasure. It remains now only, in 
view of these illustrations, 

(3.) To remark in explanation of the way in which we 
are justified through the merits of Christ. It is, that we 
are permitted to avail ourselves of his abounding merits, so 
that we may be treated as if tkey were our own. It 
is not that his merits are transferred to us, or that his moral 
character or righteousness becomes properly ours, or that we 
cease to deserve punishment, or that an apology is made for 
our sins, or that Christ takes our part against justice; but 
that his merits are so ample, his life and death have accom- 
plished so much, and his work has been so meritorious, that 

8 



86 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

we may, by a suitable connection with him, be regarded and 
treated as if we were truly righteous before God ) so that 
" God can be just and the justifier of him that believeth in 
Jesus ;" just and true while he " justifies the ungodly.-" 

This connection between the Saviour and those who are 
benefitted by his merits is not a natural connection, for no 
such relation by nature subsists as would entitle any one to 
be regarded and treated as righteous on his account, but it 
is a relation which is constituted entirely by faith. The 
influence of faith in forming it, and in making it proper 
that they who are united to him should be treated as right- 
eous, will be explained hereafter. It is sufficient now to 
remark, that the relation which is sustained is one that is 
formed, not one that exists by nature. 

It is formed by a personal union of the soul to Christ, 
and by the gracious concession on his part in accordance 
with the divine arrangement, that we may avail ourselves 
of his infinite and inexhaustible merits, so that we may be 
treated as tfihej were our own. There are two additional 
thoughts which may be suggested to illustrate this : 

(a) The one is, that his merit is inexhaustible. There 
is no diminution or exhaustion of the merit of his work, by 
the numbers that avail themselves of it. This makes the 
plan of redemption wholly different from any thing which 
occurs among men. A man of the widest credit and highest 
standing may be conceived to allow his name to be so often 
used by those who have no claim to it, or who turn out to 
be worthless, and abuse his claim, as to exhaust his credit, 
and make his name good for nothing. Not so the Saviour. 
No numbers that apply exhaust his credit, or diminish at 
all the merit of that blood by which they are saved. That 
blood is as efficacious now, and that holy name of our advo- 
cate is as much honoured in heaven now, as when the first 
sinner was justified, and when the gates of glory were first 
thrown open to receive a ransomed soul. 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 87 

(b) The other remark is, that the Lord Jesus becomes 
the surety that the universe shall suffer no wrong by our 
being admitted to heaven. So far as we are concerned, he 
pledges himself to meet all the claims of the law and of 
justice upon us. That is, he becomes the surety, that, 
under this arrangement, as great good shall result to the 
universe by our being saved, as would be by our punish- 
ment forever. By such punishment, nothing would have 
been gained in regard to the honour of the law, the truth 
of God, and the interests of justice, which are not secured 
under the present arrangement by the substituted sorrows 
of the Son of God in making the atonement. Thus he be- 
comes the " surety of a better covenant," (Heb. vii. 22 ;) 
and stands before the universe as the public pledge that no 
harm is done to any interest of truth and justice by the ad- 
mission of one, who is an acknowledged sinner, into heaven. 
Thus the publican was justified; thus Paul, the persecutor 
and blasphemer, won Christ and was found in him, not 
having his own righteousness which was of the law, but 
that which was through the faith of Christ," (Phil. iii. 8, 9 ;) 
and thus multitudes of the profane and the sensual by be- 
lieving on Christ, have entered heaven and been blessed. 
There stands the great Advocate, not for their sins but for 
them; and there stands the security, that no injury shall be 
done by treating even such sinners forever as if they were 
righteous, and that all that law or justice could ask — all that 
could be secured either by their own personal perfect obe- 
dience, or by their enduring the eternal penalty of the law, 
has been secured by his holy life and meritorious death. 
When, therefore, they enter heaven, it is not over prostrated 
law ; over a humbled government ; over disregarded threat- 
enings ; by a changeful policy, or by partiality in the ad- 
ministration ; it is because their great Surety has himself 
secured the honour of the law, and that in their conscious 
destitution of merit he has enough for them all. His name 



88 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

is the guarantee to justice and to God; his inexhaustible 
merits the reason why they may be treated as if his right- 
eousness were their own. 

This is what is properly meant by imputation. The true 
doctrine implies no transfer of moral character ; no infusion 
of righteousness into the soul ; no physical identity between 
the Redeemer and his people 5 no charging of their sins to 
him, so that he became in any proper sense a sinner or de- 
served to be put to death, — nothing but the purpose on the 
part of God, in virtue of what he has done, to treat those 
who are themselves guilty, as if they were righteous. " By 
that righteousness being imputed to us/' says President 
Edwards, " is meant no other than this, that the righteous- 
ness of Christ is accepted for us and admitted instead of 
that perfect inherent righteousness which ought to be in 
ourselves. Christ's perfect obedience shall be reckoned to 
our account, so that we shall have the benefit of it, as though 
we had performed it ourselves." Vol. v. 394. 

These views have reference to the most important subject 
of religion. They pertain to that great doctrine which 
separates Christianity from every other system of religion ; 
and to the answer which Christianity furnishes to the ques- 
tion asked with so much solicitude in every age, " How shall 
man be justified with God ¥'■ The answer is, u That we are 
justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is 
in Christ Jesus." Romans iii. 24. It is this doctrine which 
divides the religion of the gospel from all other systems; which 
makes it what it is ; which gives it whatever influence or 
power it has in speaking peace to the troubled conscience, 
and bidding the spirit that is captive under sin go free. It 
is this which will enable man to appear before his final 
Judge justified, not by any miserable attempt to deny the 
fact that he is a sinner ; to apologise for his errors and fol- 
lies, and found a claim to favour on such apology; to sub- 
stitute an external morality for that holiness of heart which 






HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 89 

the law of God requires, or to present as a ground of ac- 
ceptance the vain oblation of outward forms. 

But it should be observed also, that though this method 
of justification is entirely peculiar to Christianity, and sepa- 
rates it from all other religious systems, yet that it accords 
with principles prevailing everywhere in society, and on 
which men act every day and in every land. It is the em- 
bodiment and concentration of these principles, and shows 
their operation on the highest scale possible. Thus, as 
already remarked, in matters pertaining to this life, we owe 
to the name and standing and credit of others, an introduc- 
tion to the world, facilities for doing business, valued friends 
who may succour us in trouble : and on substantially the 
same principles, though on an infinitely higher scale, we 
owe to the merits of another — the Son of God — an intro- 
duction to the divine favour 5 a passport to heaven ; the 
friendship of angelic beings ; the peace of pardon ; the calm- 
ness of the Christian's death; and the crown incorruptible 
beyond the grave. Whatever we shall have in the long 
ages of eternity, of joy or peace, of honour or favour, is to 
be traced to the operation of this principle on the highest 
scale possible ; that we may be benefitted by the sacrifices 
and toils ; the name and merit ; the righteousness and suf- 
ferings of another. 

In common affairs we do not disregard or undervalue this. 
Those who enter on life regard it as a felicitous circumstance 
in their condition, if they may go forth with such passports 
and commendations to the esteem of the world. That 
young man would regard himself justly as destitute of every 
manly and generous feeling, as well as every principle of 
self-respect, who should discard and spurn this advantage, 
and prefer to go forth to the world without the commenda- 
tion or the patronage of a single friend. We are going to 
a more important theatre of being than is' this narrow 
world. We shall soon pass beyond its outer bounds and 

8* 



90 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

move through other regions. We are to go up and meet 
our Maker ; to enter on a mode of existence that shall have 
no end ; to be associated with now unknown orders of beings ; 
and there are great interests at stake, compared with which 
all the interests of earth are trifles. We go to a royal 
court — the court of heaven — where we have no claim to a 
right to appear. We go up to obtain, if we are happy there, 
the favour of a Being whose law we have violated, and 
whose displeasure we have incurred. We go where we can 
take no wealth with us, and where if we could, it would 
avail Nothing • where we shall be disrobed of all in a grace- 
ful exterior, or in fascinating manners that may commend 
us to others here, and where, if it should accompany us, it 
would be valueless; where the name of a father, or the 
powerful influence of a friend, that might commend us to 
the favour of men, would be of no avail ; where nothing on 
which we here rely as a passport to others, can be a com- 
mendation. But there is one in human flesh that dwells 
there. He once lived among men. He was most holy, 
and lowly, and pure, but he died. He rose from the tomb, 
and the everlasting gates were opened, and he entered his 
native skies. To the very interior of the court of heaven ; 
to the sacred seat of Deity; to the throne itself, he has been 
admitted, and is seated there. With all that heaven he is 
familiar, for he is there at home. With all its streets of 
gold, with all its far distant mansions, with all its many de- 
partments fitted up for the abodes of the blessed, he is fami- 
liar. His powerful aid he proffers us in our sin and igno- 
rance and helplessness, and assures us that he is willing that 
we should plead his name, and make mention of his merits 
as if they were our own, as a reason why we should be wel- 
come there. In heaven his plea has never been denied ; 
the claim of his merits has never been dishonoured. Shall 
we refuse his offer ? Shall we spurn his name ? Shall we 
turn away from that friend, and advocate, and patron, and 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 91 

go there friendless and alone ? Shall we seek to commend 
ourselves to a holy God by our own doings, and to stand 
there in our own attempts to vindicate our ways ? Shall we 
spurn the robes of salvation which he proffers — so white, so 
pure, so full and flowing, and gird ourselves with the rags 
of our own righteousness ? 

VII. The influence of faith in justification. 

In the last section, in showing how we are saved through 
the merits of Christ, it was remarked that the means by 
which we become interested in his merits, or by which they 
are made availiable to us, is faith. It was then proposed to 
go into a fuller explanation in the subsequent parts of this 
tract. That duty it remains now to perform. 

The substance of the Christian doctrine on this subject 
is expressed in the following passages of Scripture : — " For 
I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ ; for it is the 
power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth, 
to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is 
revealed the righteousness of God from faith to faith ; as it 
is written, " The just shall live by faith. " Rom. i. 16, 17. 
The doctrine of this passage is, that a man is considered 
just before God, and treated as such, not in virtue of his 
own works, but in virtue of his exercising faith in Christ. 
" For therein," that is, in the gospel, "the righteousness 
of God," or God's plan of regarding and treating men as 
righteous, " is revealed from faith to faith f that is, by 
faith unto those who have faith, or who believe, as it is 
written, " The just shall live by faith," or those justified by 
faith shall have everlasting life. It is needless to prove at 
length that this is the settled doctrine of the New Testa- 
ment. " Therefore we conclude," says the apostle in the 
third chapter of this epistle, (ver. 28,) "that a man is jus- 
tified by faith without the deeds of the law." Again, " By 
the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his 



92 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

sight. But now the righteousness of God without the law 
is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets ; 
even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus 
Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe ; for there 
is no difference." Rom. iii. 20-22. So the apostle Paul 
says again, " A man is not justified by the works of the 
law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ." Gal. ii. 16. In 
accordance with this, is the great doctrine which the Sa- 
viour taught his disciples to promulgate as comprising all 
that he designed them to teach : " Go ye into all the world 
and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth 
and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not 
shall be damned." Mark xvi. 15, 16. That is, there is no 
other method of being saved but by believing, or by faith, 
and if a man has not this, he must be lost. 

Probably every one who has ever read these passages has 
been disposed to ask, "Why is so much stress laid on faith in 
the plan of redemption ? Why is it made so central, and 
so indispensable in the salvation of the soul ? What inhe- 
rent virtue is there in this act that has given it such a pre- 
eminence over all other virtues ? What is there in this 
that should make it a substitute for all the good works that 
men can perform ? Perhaps some will be disposed to add, 
that the system of Christianity is thus removed from all 
other systems, and is different from all the laws and princi- 
ples on which men act in other things. Merit, in other 
cases, is not in accordance with a man's belief but accord- 
ing to his virtues — his moral worth — and why should faith 
have such special eminence in the eye of God ? The re- 
wards of this life are not distributed according to a man's 
faith or credulity, and why should the rewards of heaven 
be ? We judge of the excellency of a man's character not 
according to the readiness with which he embraces what is 
proposed to him for his credence, but usually somewhat in 
proportion to his caution and the slowness of his belief, and 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 93 

why does religion require a man to hasten to believe that 
which is proposed to hira, as if this were the chiefest of the 
virtues ? When, also, a man is put on trial, he is acquit- 
ted, not because he exhibits an example of trusting in his 
judge or his advocate, but because he js able to vindicate 
his conduct ; and why shall we not look for something ana- 
logous in religion ? Why are pardon and hope ; life and 
joy; heaven and glory; peace here and bliss hereafter; all 
made to depend on faith — " the centre and the circumfe- 
rence ; the beginning, the middle, and the end, according 
to the gospel, of every virtue ? These are questions which 
it is natural to ask ; they are questions which the friend of 
Christianity should feel it to be a part of his vocation to 
answer. The relation or connection which these questions 
bear to the subject before us is this : — Supposing that man 
has no merit of his own, as has been shown, and that there 
are infinite merits in the Redeemer through which we may 
be saved, why is it proper that we should avail ourselves of 
those merits only through faith ? Why should faith be the 
instrument by which we may be treated as if those merits 
were ours ? 

The answer to these questions is, that, in the circum- 
stances of the case, faith constitutes a union with the Re- 
deemer, of such a nature as to make it proper to treat us 
substantially as he himself is treated; that is, as righteous; 
to make it proper that we should share his happiness, his 
favour, his protection on earth, and his glory in heaven ; 
that the union formed by faith between the soul and the 
Redeemer is so tender, so close, and so strong as to imply 
an identity of interest, and to make it certain and proper 
that the blessings descending on him should, according to 
their capacity and wants, descend on those who believe. It 
is meant that the particular reason why faith has been se- 
lected as the means of this is, that it constitutes a union 
more close, firm, and enduring than any other virtue, and 



94 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

that it meets and overcomes more evils in the world than any 
other act of the mind would do. On this account, it is sin- 
gled out from all other acts of the mind in the plan of jus- 
tifying men. To many these remarks may appear abstract 
and obscure now. It is proposed, therefore, in a series of 
observations to show why faith is so important; why it is the 
very car do rerum — the hinge of salvation. 

One other preliminary remark should be made. It is 
that there is a great and essential difference between faith 
and credulity. We distinguish them accurately in common 
life ; we fear that they are sometimes confounded when men 
think of religion. 

The inquiry proposed embraces essentially the two follow- 
ing points : — Why faith is of so much importance in a work 
of salvation ; and why faith in Christ is made so prominent - 
and essential. The first point of inquiry is, why faith is 
of so much importance in a work of salvation. In reply to 
this inquiry let it be observed, 

(1.) That faith acts an important part in the affairs of 
the world. Using the word in the sense of confidence, 
there is nothing else on which the welfare of society more 
depends, or which is more indispensable to its prosperous 
and harmonious relations. It enters into every thing, 
and we are every day and every hour acting under its in- 
fluence, and depending on it as essential to all that we 
hold dear. It is the cement of families, of neighbourhoods, 
of governments, of nations. The faith of treaties, of com- 
pacts, of promises, of friendships, of affection, is that which 
holds the world together, and without which society would 
go to pieces. To loosen it at once, would be like loosening 
every rope in a ship, or unscrewing every fastening and bolt 
in a machine. It is by faitk, or mutual confidence, that 
the relations of domestic life are maintained ; that the har- 
mony of a family is secured ; that business, in a mercantile 
community, is carried on ; that a banking institution effects 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 95 

the purpose for which it was chartered ; or that a govern- 
ment can secure the ends for which it was instituted. It is 
by faith only that we derive lessons of valuable instruction 
from history, or act with reference to what is yet to come. 
If we had no more confidence in any of the testimonies of 
history than we have in the fabulous details of the dynas- 
ties of India, the mythological periods of Grecian history, 
or the legends of the saints, all past history would be ut- 
terly useless, for it would convey no certain lessons ; if we 
had no faith in the stability of the course of events — the 
rising of the sun, the moon and the stars ; the return of 
the seasons; the continuance of the laws of magnetism, of 
gravitation, or of vegetation, we should form no plan for 
the future ; we should neither plant a field,, nor build a ship, 
nor venture out on the ocean where we might soon be with- 
out sun, or star, or compass. We confide in our teachers, 
in a physician, a counsellor, a clergyman, and it would be 
impossible that the cause of education, jurisprudence or re- 
ligion, could be maintained if there were no such confidence. 
The farmer of the Eastern States believes in the vast fer- 
tility of the West, of which he has heard, but which he 
has never seen, and, with his wife and children, leaves the 
graves of his fathers to seek that land on the strength of 
his faith ; and the merchant believes that there is such a 
place as Canton or Calcutta, though he has seen neither ; 
and on the strength of that faith would embark all his pro- 
perty in the same vessel, and stake the whole question about 
making a fortune in this world on his strong confidence that 
such places, of which he has heard, have an existence. In 
like manner we are exercising confidence in every thing. 
We believe the testimony of the historians, though we 
never saw Xenophon, or Thucydides, or witnessed the events 
of which they wrote; we vote for the man whom we have 
never seen; we confide in the bankers across the waters 
whom we never expect to behold. Were it not for this 



96 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

unceasing confidence in the varied operations of faith, we 
could not get along for a single day or hour. The affairs 
of the world would at once stand still. The bands of so- 
ciety would at once become loosened, and every thing would 
fall into irretrievable confusion. 

It is true, there may be much credulity in the world, and 
multitudes in all professions and relations in life are im- 
posed on. But so, also, there is much counterfeit money, 
and many may be injured or ruined by it. But the exist- 
ence of a circulating medium is indispensable, and there is 
by far more genuine than false coin at any time in the 
world, and any quantity of spurious coin does not render 
that valueless which is genuine. So any amount of credu- 
lity does not prove that it is improper that men should ever 
repose confidence in one another, or that all faith is value- 
less. 

(2.) The second observation illustrating the importance 
of faith with reference to the subject before us is, that faith 
is the strongest conceivable bond of union between minds 
and hearts. It is, in fact, the cement of all unions, and 
without which all else is valueless. In friendships, in trea- 
ties, in national compacts, in social intercourse, in the ten- 
der domestic relations, it is the very bond of union, and 
there is nothing else that can be a substitute for it. The 
seal which is affixed to a letter that is sent to a friend does 
not make it secure because no one has power to break it, but 
because there is confidence in each postmaster through 
whose hands it may pass, and in each stranger or friend 
into whose hands it may happen to fall, that he will respect 
the seal, and will not break it. The seal which is ap- 
pended to a will does not render it secure because no 
one has power to break it, but because the testator has con- 
fidence that his friends and that the courts of his country 
will respect his wishes when his mouth is forever closed 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 97 

against the possibility of his declaring his desires, and his 
hand powerless to assert his rights. 

Look into the relations of life. What is it that forms 
and preserves those numerous unions on which the very 
existence of society depends ? "What is the basis of the 
union of husband and wife, of parent and child, of brother 
and sister, of friend and friend ? What is there but mu- 
tual confidence ? And is it asked what is the strength of 
that ? In answer to these questions an illustration may be 
employed, taken from the most tender relation in life. This 
illustration is used, because it is the very one more than 
once referred to on this subject in the Bible, and because 
it enters so vitally into the welfare of society. Here is a 
young man just entering on life. His character is fair; his 
profession is honourable ; his person and standing are liable 
to no objection, and no suspicion — but what he may be yet 
no one earthly can tell, for no one can certainly predict 
about what a man will be, till he is tried. Here is a youth- 
ful female — the joy of her mother and the pride of her fa- 
ther's heart. She has been delicately trained; has a home 
that has every attraction ; is secure there of unfailing friends 
as long as her father and mother shall live, and has ample 
means of support. She breaks all these ties; leaves the 
home of her childhood ; bids adieu to father, mother, bro- 
thers, and sisters, and commits herself into the hands of 
this comparative stranger. A father's, and a mother's, and 
a brother's love she exchanges for his. Her hand, her 
heart, her property she gives to him. She pledges herself 
to go where he goes ; to suffer what he suffers ; to make his 
friends hers ; to love him with an ardour with which she 
loves no other human being ; to break away from every tie 
of country and home if he shall will it; and in a sense 
more absolute than exists in any other case, to commit her 
happiness into his hands. Every day and every hour that 
they will live, she is dependent on his prosperity, his virtue, 



98 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

and his smiles for her happiness, and the moment his affec- 
tions are withdrawn, or he ceases to be a virtuous man, her 
happiness is dead. If he is virtuous, faithful, and kind, she 
regrets not the act of confidence with which she gave him 
her heart and hand. But what if he trifles with her^happi- 
ness ? What if he always meets her with a frown ? What 
if he proves false to his vows? What if he becomes a 
wretched drunkard ? Now what is the foundation and the 
source of its strength ? Confidence ; and when that is gone 
domestic peace dies. She has made a sacrifice of her hap- 
piness, and her earthly felicity is a wreck. 

Let another thought be suggested here. It is, that this 
union of confidence secures an identity in their destiny. 
They are one — one flesh, said the Saviour — and the same 
events will now affect both. Before this union the storm 
might have beat on one of them, and sunshine gladdened 
the path of the other. Now the storm and the sunshine 
come on both alike. The light that gladdens the eyes of 
the one is also a pleasant thing to the other ; the star that 
rises propitiously on one, rises propitiously also on the path 
of the other. The blessings of peace and joy that greet the 
one, greet also the other. There is one heart, one pulsa- 
tion, one breathing, one soul made up of the two. And so 
if calamity comes; if, under the roof where they are to 
abide, the pale destroyer shall come with stealthy foot-tread, 
and change the rose on the cheek of a smiling babe to the 
lily of death, it will be a scene in which both their hearts 
will bleed alike, and they will weep together over the open 
grave. If one is sad, both are sad ; if one is poor, both are 
poor. Their union, one pre-eminently of mutual faith 
plighted before the altar, constitutes an identity in all the 
great events of life, and secures to both substantially the 
same treatment from the Great Disposer of all things. 
They share the same fortune; the same honour or dis- 
grace; the same sorrows and the same joys; they are 






HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 99 

wafted on to a port of bliss or are wrecked in the same 
vessel ; they are greeted with the same welcome in life, 
they are buried in the same grave. - It is easy to apply this 
illustration to the matter in hand. 

(3.) The third illustration is, that faith is of such a nature 
that it is adapted to meet all the evils of the world. The 
idea is, that it has been made the hinge or turning point of 
salvation, because the want of it has been the source of all 
the calamities which man has suffered, and because, if this 
is restored, the evil of the world would be at an end. 

The grand evil on earth, and the source of all subordinate 
evils, is a want of confidence in God. This was the evil at 
the start, that man reposed more confidence in the teachings 
of the tempter, than in the law of the Creator, and this has 
been the source of all our woe. Man has no confidence in his 
God. He does not believe that the Most High is qualified for 
universal empire ; that he manages the affairs of the universe 
well; that his law is equal and just; that his dispensations 
are in accordance with equity ; that his plan of salvation is 
wise. He does not show his confidence in him by yielding 
implicit obedience to his laws, or by submitting to his dis- 
pensations. He does not go to him and ask counsel of him 
in the darknesses and perplexities of life; he does not seek 
support in his arms in times of calamity. He does not com- 
mit his great interests to him, believing that he will be his 
guide through life, and that he will yet make " all things 
work together for good." He confides in other things. He 
confides in his own strength, till his strength fails ; in his 
philosophy till it deludes and deceives him ; in his fellow- 
men till they all betray him ; in friends and kindred, till 
they drop into the grave; in his skill and sagacity, till he 
comes to a place in life where u the right hand loses its 
cunning." He confides in stocks and stones, in graven 
images, and fourfooted beasts and creeping things, but by 
nature he has no confidence in God. 



100 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

This is the grand evil of the world; this the source of 
all our woes; for a want of confidence here produces the 
same kind of evils, though on a larger scale, as the 
same want everywhere. We have seen that the welfare of 
society depends on mutual confidence. Now, to see how 
wretched any society can possibly be, we have only to sup- 
pose the existence there of the same want of confidence 
which subsists between man and his Maker. If a perfectly 
malignant being wished to diffuse as much misery as possi- 
ble through the world, all that he could desire would be 
to break up universal faith. He would go into a com- 
munity, and with the touch of a magic wand would in a 
moment destroy all confidence in each merchant, bank and 
insurance office, and lawyer, and physician, and clergyman. 
He would go into each school, and destroy all confidence in 
the instructor. He would go into each family, and destroy 
everywhere the mutual confidence of husband and wife, 
and introduce universal distrust and jealousy. He would 
unsettle the faith of every child in his father, of every 
brother in his sister. What would be the result ? He 
would at once arrest the wheels of commerce ; put an end 
to business; make every professional man useless and 
wretched ; take away sleep from the pillow of every husband 
and wife, and fill every family, and the whole community 
with heart-burnings, jealousies, contentions, and strifes. No 
man would know in whom to trust ; no one could form a 
plan dependent in any manner on the fidelity of others ; no 
one could be certain that any of his purposes of life could 
be effected. The scene at Babel would be reacted again all 
over the world, and worse disorder than that which followed 
from confounding the language of the people there, would 
pervade all classes and conditions of mankind. The remedy 
for such a state of things would be the restoration of mutual 
confidence. In such a condition of ill, nothing would have 
so far-reaching an effect. It would in fact meet all those 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 101 

ills and make society harmonious and happy. The wheels 
of commerce, of government, of domestic peace, of public 
improvement, of education, would again roll on harmoniously, 
and happiness would again bless the world. The want of 
faith or confidence in God has produced all the ills on earth, 
of which those just supposed are but an emblem ; the re- 
storation of confidence in God would strike at the root of all 
those ills, and make this a happy world. It is this which 
makes heaven happy, where every being has faith in God 
and in all that dwell there; and with all our wants 
and sadnesses this too would be a happy world, if there 
were universal confidence in God. In our sorrows we should 
then have peace, for we should believe that all is well 
ordered; under our heavy burdens of life we should find 
support, for we would go and roll all on his arm ; in all the 
dark and perplexing questions that now agitate us about the 
introduction of moral evil and the prevalence of iniquity, 
our minds would be calm, for we should feel that there was 
a reason for it all, and in the prospect of death — that which 
now makes us so sad — our hearts would find more than 
peace — we should utter the language of joy and triumph, 
for it would be only the coming of a messenger to bear us 
to a much loved Father's arms. The grand thing that needs 
to be done on earth to make this a happy world, is to restore 
universal confidence in God, and this is the whole aim of 
religion, this the object of the scheme of redemption. 
Hence the necessity of faith is laid at the foundation of the 
whole scheme ; it is the cardinal thing in the plan of salva- 
tion. This restored, what a happy world, after all, would 
this be ! For it is a beautiful world. It is full of the 
proofs of God's goodness and love. There are a thousand 
comforts that meet us every day and every night; and a 
thousand tender chords that should bind us to our Creator. 
If we confided in him as qualified for universal empire ; if 

we felt that he was Jit to manage the affairs of his own 

9* 



102 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

world ; if we believed that he will yet bring order out of 
confusion and light out of darkness ; if we trusted that his 
law is good and his commandments holy, and if we would 
go to him with the confiding spirit with which a little child 
goes and tells all his troubles to his father, this would be 
still a happy world. For that grand undertaking of the 
almighty Father of us all, to restore unwavering confidence 
in himself, manifested in the Grospel, the world should be 
unfeignedly thankful, and one of the principal topics of 
praise on earth should be, that he has required faith as the 
very elementary principle of his religion. 

(4.) A fourth remark, in explanation of the subject, is that 
faith is required, or is made the condition of justification, for 
this reason : — There is an obvious propriety that, where sal- 
vation is provided and offered, there should be some act on 
our part signifying our acceptance of it. If we are to be 
saved through the merits of Christ, there should be some 
reason on our part why we should be. There should be 
some act indicating our wish or our will ) some expression 
of our desire in the case ; something that shall serve to dis- 
tinguish us from those who are not saved. It evidently 
would not be proper, it would not be consulting the nature 
which God has given us, to receive the race indiscriminately 
into heaven without any intimation of a wish to be saved, 
or to save one part and leave the other, unless there were 
something that would indicate in the one a desire to be 
saved, which did not exist in the case of the other. What 
would better show this than faith ? What would be a bet- 
ter expression of a desire to be saved ? What act would 
be more appropriate in accepting salvation ; in the intimat- 
ing of a wish that the benefits of the death of Christ might 
be ours ? What would constitute a stronger bond between 
the soul and him than this 5 what would come nearer to- 
ward constituting that identity on which it is proper that 
those who are united should be treated alike ? You are a 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD ? 103 

father ; you have two sons. They both become disobedient. 
They leave your house at their pleasure; go where they 
choose; are out at such hours as suit their convenience; 
keep such company as they desire, and are wholly regard- 
less of your laws. They heed neither your promises nor your 
threats, and they have gone so far that they have now no 
confidence in you. You have favours which you are willing 
to bestow on them. You would be willing to receive them 
to your house, and to treat .them as sons, alike in your life- 
time and in your will. But would you think it unreasona- 
ble that, as a condition of their being received and treated 
as sons, they should evince returning confidence in you ? 
And if one of them should return, and should ever onward 
manifest the confidence due from a son to a father, and the 
other should not, would you think it improper to make a 
distinction between them in your lifetime and in your will ? 
And would they and the world be at a loss for a reason why 
it was done ? The remark here is, that faith in Christ is 
the appropriate act by which we accept of the benefits of 
his work, and that this constitutes a difference between him 
who accepts of his salvation and him who does not ; and 
that this is a reason why the one should be treated as if he 
were interested in those benefits and the other not ; that 
is a reason why the one is justified and the other not. 

Bearing in mind the remarks now made, that a restora- 
tion to confidence would meet innumerable evils in a family, 
in a commercial community, between neighbours and be- 
tween nations, and fhat the restoration of confidence in 
God would meet all the evils under which this world labours 
now, I proceed to show why faith in Christ particularly 
is made so important as a condition of salvation. With 
reference to this, three remarks may be made :-- — 

(1.) The first is, that we are to repose faith or confidence 
in Christ as authorized to negotiate the terms of reconcilia- 
tion between God and man. The whole system of revealed 



104 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

religion proceeds on the fact — a fact which is apparent with- 
out any revelation — that an- alienation exists between God 
and man, or that man is in a state of revolt. It was 
with reference to this alienation that the Son of God came 
into the world to accomplish the most difficult of all un- 
dertakings, that of reconciling opposing minds, and of 
bringing them into harmony. On the one hand, there was 
the infinite mind of God, whose law had been violated, and 
whose government had been rejected and outraged, and 
whose threatenings had been disregarded ; and on the other, 
there were countless millions of minds wholly alienated from 
the Creator. To bring the holy Creator and the millions of 
rebellious minds into harmony; to propose the terms on 
which God was willing to forgive sin ; to make such ar- 
rangements as that he could consistently pardon; and to 
bring the minds of revolted men to a willingness to be re- 
conciled, was the work undertaken by this great peace- 
maker. 

But it is evident that this work could not be accom- 
plished, unless confidence was reposed in him by both the 
parties of the unhappy controversy. In infinitely smaller 
matters, when nations are alienated, if a mediator proposes 
arrangements of peace, or if ambassadors are appointed to 
negotiate a peace, it is clear that the matter could not pro- 
ceed a step unless there were confidence on both sides in 
in the mediator or ambassadors. 

Christ is a great mediator ; a peace-maker between God 
and man. On the part of God, there was every reason to 
repose entire confidence in him in so great an undertaking, 
for he was his only begotten Son ; eternally in his bosom, 
and loved, with an infinite love, before the foundation of 
the world. John xvii. 24. By him the worlds had been 
made; (John i. 3 ; Heb. i. 21;) and under him, with re- 
ference to the work of redemption, their affairs had been 
administered up to the time when he appeared in the flesh. 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD ? 105 

God the Father reposed unlimited confidence in him when 
he appointed him to be the mediator, and intrusted to him 
the execution of the great purpose of reconciling the world 
again to the divine government. This confidence reposed 
in Christ in the work of mediation, is often referred to in 
the New Testament, by the Saviour himself, and by the 
sacred penmen : "This is my beloved Son," was declared 
from heaven at his baptism, "in whom I am well pleased." 
Matt. iii. 17. " Father," said the Saviour, just before his 
death, " glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from 
heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it 
again." John xii. 28. "Thou hast given him power," 
said he again, il over all flesh, that he should give eternal 
life to as many as thou hast given him." John xvii. 2. 
" All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth ; go 
ye therefore and teach all nations." Matt, xxviii. 18, 19. 
"I am the way," said he, " and the truth, and the life; no 
man cometh unto the Father but by me." John xiv. 6. So 
we are told, that " there is one God, and one Mediator be- 
tween God and man, the man Christ Jesus." 1 Tim. xi. 5. 

These things show the degree of confidence which the 
Father reposed in him in the work of mediation — intrusting 
to him the message of mercy ; appointing him to convey it 
to men ; and endowing him as Mediator, with all the power 
and authority which were requisite to accomplish so great a 
work. 

But confidence in him is not less required in regard to 
the other party than by him who had appointed him. It is 
clear that, unless we have confidence in him as the messen- 
ger and ambassador of God; unless we regard him as sent 
from heaven, and as authorized to propose terms of recon- 
ciliation ; unless we feel that he can make a definite arrange- 
ment, and that what he proposes will be sanctioned by God; 
unless we feel that he is authorized to propose terms of par- 
don, and to declare our sins forgiven, and to pronounce us 



106 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

accepted and justified, it would be impossible for us to avail 
ourselves of any arrangement for salvation through him. 
"We should feel that we were trifling with a great subject; 
and in our serious moments, when we thought of the great 
interests at stake, we should be in no humour to trifle. 
None of us would seriously think of embracing any terms 
of reconciliation with God proposed by Mohammed, or Zo- 
roaster, or Confucius ; by Lord Herbert or Mr. Hume ; for 
we do not suppose that any of these men were authorized 
to propose terms of salvation. We have no confidence in 
them as ambassadors of God, whatever we may think of 
them in other respects. The primary ground "of faith, there- 
fore, in Christ, is, that we have confidence in him as a me- 
diator, an ambassador, a peace-maker ; as authorized to pro- 
pose to us the terms on which peace may be obtained with 
our offended Creator. " If ye believe not that I am he, yo 
shall die in your sins." John viii. 24. 

(2.) The second remark to which we referred, showing 
specifically why faith in Christ is demanded, is, that it is by 
his agency and merits only that we can be received into the 
favour of God. He came not only to bring the message of 
reconciliation, and to propose the terms, but to do and to 
suffer whatever was necessary to be done, in order that we 
might be accepted of the Father, or in or^er that we might 
be saved consistently with the interests of justice. The 
case somewhat resembles what it would be in the instance 
of an ambassador coming to negotiate a peace who should 
not only come to propose the terms, but should actually have 
in his possession that which alone could be regarded as a 
reparation for wrong done by one of the parties to the other, 
and who should come not only to persuade the party which 
had done the wrong to be willing to be reconciled, but also 
to avail itself of what he was ready to furnish to repair all 
the evil done, and to satisfy the other party. In such a 
case, it would not be unreasonable to ask confidence in him- 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 107 

self, or to make this one of the conditions by which the 
favour might be available. In fact, it could not be con- 
sistently made available in any other way, or on any other 
conditions, and, unless there were faith in him, the nego- 
tiation could proceed no further. 

Thus we are required to exercise faith in the Lord Jesus. 
We are destitute of merit. We have violated the law of 
God, and can do nothing to repair the wrong. We are 
debtors, to an incalculable amount, to justice ; and we have 
nothing with which to pay the debt. We can do absolutely 
nothing to vindicate our own conduct; to undo the evils 
that we have done ; to make up for the dishonour which we 
have put on the law of God; to atone for our thousands of 
faults and follies. At this point the Son of God appears, 
and he comes with the assurance that he has himself per- 
fectly obeyed the law, and has honoured it as fully as it 
can be honoured by obedience; that he has suffered a 
most bitter death — a death aggravated by every form of 
cruelty — as an expiation for our sins ; that he will become 
the guarantee or surety that the law shall suffer no disho- 
nour if we are saved ; that no injury shall result from our 
pardon, and that, in fact, all the good effects have been se- 
cured by his death which could he by our being doomed to 
bear the penalty of the law ourselves ; and that all that 
is needful for us now is to become united to him by an in- 
dissoluble bond to put ourselves under his protection; and 
to be so identified with him that it will be proper to treat 
us as if we had personally obeyed the law, or borne its 
penalty. That which will constitute the closest union in 
the case, and which will do most to render this identity of 
treatment proper, is confidence in him as our Saviour, and 
reliance on his merits, or faith. 

(3.) The third remark necessary to explain the subject, 
or to show why faith in Christ is made the turning point of 
justification and salvation is, that the act of believing on 



108 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD ? 

Christ is made in circumstances and in a manner indicating 
confidence of the highest kind that ever exists in the human 
bosom, constituting a union of the closest conceivable na- 
ture. It is an act so identifying the soul and the Saviour 
as to make it proper that the same treatment which the* 
Redeemer receives should in this measure be received by his 
people, or that in the divine treatment they should be prac- 
tically regarded as one. The circumstances are these : — 

(a) The sinner feels that he is lost and ruined. He is 
made sensible that he is guilty before God, and that he has 
no claim to his mercy. His heart is evil ; his life has been 
evil; his whole soul is evil. If justice were done him, he 
feels that he would be forever banished from God and hea- 
ven. Yet he feels that he has a soul of infinite value. 
It is to endure forever. It is capable, in the long eter- 
nity before it, of suffering more than the aggregate of all 
the sorrows that have yet been endured on earth, and in 
hell. It is capable, also, in that infinite duration, of enjoy- 
ing more than the aggregate of bliss of all that has been 
experienced on earth united with all that has been known in 
heaven. A boundless eternity is before the trembling sin- 
ner, and infinite interests are at stake. 

(b) He despairs of salvation in himself. He feels now that 
he has no power to rescue his soul from death. He cannot 
confide in his own arm, or in the arm of any mortal. He 
has tried every method of salvation ; every way of obtaining 
peace of conscience ; every plan that proposed security to 
his soul, but in vain. He stands now a lost and ruined 
being trembling on the shores of eternity. The boundless 
ocean spreads out before him. Clouds and darkness rest 
upon it. He has deserved no mercy \ he has no claim on 
God to be his guide and protector ; he can urge no reason 
why he should be admitted to a world of peace. 

(c) In these sad and perilous circumstances, he commits 
his soul with all its infinite and eternal interests, into the 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 109 

hands of the Lord Jesus. By a simple act of faith he em- 
braces him as his Saviour, his friend, his sacrifice, his advo- 
cate. Renouncing all confidence in his own merit, he re- 
solves to rely on the merit of Christ ; abandoning every 
plea on the ground of what he has himself done, he resolves 
to urge the merits of the Saviour as his plea, and forsaking 
forever all reliance for salvation on birth or blood ; on moral 
virtues or intellectual attainments ; on rank in life or the 
commendation of friends ; on the goodness of his own heart 
or on forms in religion, he stakes his own everlasting inte- 
rest and the question of his final salvation on the belief that 
there is a Saviour, and that Jesus is the Son of God, and 
that he is able and willing to save him. He is willing to 
risk the issue on this belief, and he who was a moment be- 
fore trembling on the verge of hell as if there were no hope, 
now calmly turns the eye to heaven, and smiles through his 
tears and says, "I know whom I have believed, and am 
persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have com- 
mitted unto him against that day." 

(d) This is a wonderful act of confidence. That is great 
confidence which is evinced when a drowning man seizes a 
rope that is thrown to him, and suspends the question of 
his safety on the belief that you can draw him to the shore. 
That would be great confidence which the man who was 
shipwrecked, and who had clambered up a projecting rock 
above the reach of the waves, should evince if he would 
fasten a rope let down from above around his body, and 
swing off over the raging billows, trusting to the rope and 
the strength of those above to draw him up. And that is 
great confidence in a case already referred to where a deli- 
cately framed youthful female leaves her mother and fa- 
ther and commits herself, for weal or wo, into the hands of 
a comparative stranger. But such acts are not equal to 
that by which the dying soul commits itself to the Saviour. 

They will hardly do for an illustration. For what are the 

10 



110 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

raging waves of the ocean compared with the rolling fires 
of the world of despair? What is the perilled death of 
the body compared with the death of the soul ? What are 
all the temporal interests which youth, or beauty, or vir- 
tue can commit to another here, compared with those eter- 
nal interests which are intrusted to the Son of God ? It 
remains then only to add : 

(e) That in virtue of such a union there should be iden- 
tity of treatment. So we saw in the illustration of the 
husband and wife, where the union between them led on 
common sorrows and common joys ; common successes and 
common reverses ; common sunshine and common shade. 
Much more should it be so in the more tender and close 
union of the soul to the Saviour by the act of faith. They 
become one. He is the " vine," they are the " branches ;" 
he the u head," they the " members ;" he lives in them 
and dwells in them. He is " Christ in us the hope of 
glory." " We are members of his body, his flesh, and his 
bones." " I live," says the apostle, " yet not I, but Christ 
liveth in me." " Because I live," said the Saviour, " ye 
shall live also." Through all life's future scenes his people 
will be treated as he was ; and the union with him is so 
close that it introduces them to common joys and triumphs 
with him forever. They will be made happy because the 
same blessings that descend on the " head" will flow to all 
the " members." 

In view of these remarks, the following thoughts may be 
suggested : — 

(1.) The simplicity and ease of the way of salvation in the 
G-ospel are remarkable. The leading thing required of him 
who would be sayed is faith or confidence in the Redeemer. 
Thus Paul said to the trembling jailer at Philippi, " Be- 
lieve on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." 
Acts xvi. 31. So again in the Epistle to the Romans, " If 
thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? Ill 

shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from 
the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man 
believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession 
is made unto salvation." Rom. x. 9, 10. Here, as every- 
where in the New Testament, salvation is represented as 
easy. The terms are as simple as possible. There is no 
requisition of our attempting to obey the whole law of God 
as a condition of salvation ; no demand on us to offer costly 
sacrifices, or to make pilgrimages to a distant shrine, or to 
practise penances and fastings, or to lacerate the body, or 
to attempt to work out a righteousness by conformity to 
external forms, or by union to a particular church. The 
simple, the single thing demanded is faith on the Son of 
God, If man has this, he is safe. No matter what his 
past life has been ; no matter what his complexion, rank, 
or apparel ; no matter where he lives or dies ; no matter 
whether he worships in a splendid temple or under the open 
vault of heaven, and no matter whether his body rests in 
consecrated ground or amid the corals of the ocean, he is a 
child of God and an heir of the kingdom. Whatever may 
be said of this plan of salvation, it cannot be said that it is 
not sufficiently simple, and that it does not breathe a spirit 
of benignity toward the lost and ruined children of men. 
The infidel cannot object that God has not adapted it to the 
condition of human nature at it is — made up, for the most 
part, of the ignorant, the down-trodden, and of children; 
nor that it has required more of any man than the human 
powers can render. Yet, 

(2.) While thus simple and easy, it is on the great prin- 
ciples which we see everywhere prevail. There is required 
in salvation that which keeps the social world together, and 
causes human things to move on in harmony — that without 
which all the interests of man would be a wreck. There is 
required that which would arrest all human ills, and make 



112 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

this still a happy world — confidence in our God. Man 
wants but this to make him a happy being here ; he will 
want but this to make him happy forever. As confidence is 
the great principle which cements society, so it was indis- 
pensable in religion that confidence in God should be re- 
stored. We cannot conceive that a human being could be 
saved without faith. Even if it had not been distinctly and 
formally required in the plan, it is impossible to conceive 
that there could have been salvation without it. The" very 
process of returning to God from our wanderings implies 
returning confidence in him — for how or why should the 
sinner return to him if he has no confidence in him ? And 
how could he be happy in heaven if he had no confidence 
in God ? What would heaven be if there were the same 
distrust of the Deity, and the same jarring opinions, and 
the same alienation from him, and the same doubt of his 
being, his justice, and his goodness there which exist on 
earth ? The plan of salvation by faith is laid in the deep- 
est philosophy — and is based on the irreversible nature of 
things. 

(3.) The subject suggests a remark on the nature and aims 
of infidelity. Men often think that unbelief is a harmless 
thing. They sometimes regard it as a special proof of 
meritorious independence to be an infidel. They pride 
themselves on their philosophy, and their freedom from 
vulgar prejudices and priestcraft — perhaps on their freedom 
from the prejudices instilled by a pious parent, a pastor, or 
a Sunday-school teacher. They consider the denunciations 
of unbelief in the gospel as v singularly harsh, and use no 
measured terms in expressing their abhorrence of a system 
which denounces the eternal pains of hell on a man because 
he will not believe. The want of faith, say they, is a harm- 
less or a meritorious thing. But are you connected with a 
bank ? Would you think that a harmless effort in a daily 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 113 

paper which should attempt to unsettle the confidence of 
the community in your institution ? Have you a character 
for virtue, which you have secured by years of toil, and of 
upright deportment ? Is that a harmless report in the com- 
munity which tends to destroy all confidence in that charac- 
ter ? Are you a father ? Is it a harmless effort of your 
neighbour when he attempts to unsettle the confidence of 
your own children in your virtue ? Are you a husband ? 
Is he a harmless man who shall aim to unsettle your faith 
in the wife of your bosom, and produce between you and 
her an utter want of confidence ? And is there no evil 
in that state of mind where there is no confidence in God 
that rules on high — the God that made us, and that holds 
our destiny in his hands ? Is it nothing to unsettle the 
faith of man in his God, and to introduce universal distrust 
in his government ? Is it nothing to inculcate or cherish 
the thought that the governor of the world is a dark, ma- 
lignant, harsh, and severe being, and to alienate the affec- 
tions of creation from its God ? Let the history of the 
earth answer. All our evils began in that unhappy mo- 
ment when our first parents lost their confidence in their 
God. " Loss of Eden," toil, sweat, despair, perplexity and 
death, tell what the evil was. Calamities have rolled along 
in black and angry surges, and the dark flood still swells 
and heaves upon the earth. Peace will be restored and 
paradise regained only when man is restored to confidence in 
his God — and this is the grand and glorious work of the 
gospel. This done in any heart, and its " peace becomes as 
a river and its righteousness as the waves of the sea." This 
done all over the earth, and millennial joy will visit the 
nations. This done, as successive individuals or generations 
leave the world, death is disarmed of his sting, for the 
departing soul leaves with full assurance of faith on the 

Saviour. 

10* 



114 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD ? 

VIII. The bearing and importance of the doctrine of jus- 
tification by faith. 

The points which have been illustrated in the previous 
sections are the following : — The importance of the inquiry 
how man can be justified with God ; the fact that man cannot 
justify or vindicate himself by denying the truth of the 
charges against him ; the fact that he cannot do it by show- 
ing that he had a right to do as he has done ; the fact that 
he cannot merit salvation; what is to be understood by the 
merits of Christ ; in what sense we are justified by the 
merits of Christ ; and the agency of faith in our justifica- 
tion. It is proposed now, in the conclusion of the subject, 
to refer to some historical illustrations of the value and in- 
fluence of the doctrine of justification by faith, and to show 
why it has the place which history has assigned it. 

In illustrating the value and influence of the doctrine as 
shown by history, three periods of the world may be briefly 
referred to. 

(1.) The first is the age of the apostles, when, perhaps, 
the effect of the doctrine of justification by faith was more 
vividly seen than it has ever been since. That this was the 
doctrine which Paul preached; which he made prominent 
in his writings ; and which he everywhere defended, no 
one acquainted with his history can for a moment doubt. 
It would be needless here to transcribe the passages of his 
writings which declare his views on this point; or which 
show how earnestly he expressed his convictions of its truth 
and importance. Everywhere he maintained that a man is 
not justified by the deeds of the law, but by the righteous- 
ness of faith ; that we are saved not by works of righteous- 
ness which we have done ; that they that are under the law 
are under the curse ; and that they who are justified by 
faith have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. 
In the most earnest and emphatic manner he abjured all 
dependence on his own merits for salvation ; disclaimed all 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 115 

reliance on the extraordinary zeal for religion which he had 
manifested in early life, and on his own blameless outward 
deportment, and declared it now to be the grand purpose of 
his soul to "know Christ, and to be found in him, not hav- 
ing his own righteousness which was of the law, but the 
righteousness which is of God by faith. " Phil. iii. 9. In 
this he coincided with all the other apostles, who taught, as 
he did, that no reliance was to be placed on outward forms 
of religion, on good works, on an amiable character, or on 
alms, as the ground of salvation. It was then that the doc- 
trine of simple dependence on Christ for salvation went 
forth with freshness and with power. It was unencum- 
bered by any attending doctrine of a different character to 
fetter its movements ; or to hinder its progress through the 
world. There was no necessity proclaimed of depending on 
rites or forms of religion ; no reverence for sacred places 
inculcated as necessary to salvation ; no connection with a 
particular church organized under a peculiar ministry, was 
declared to be essential ; no saving efficacy was attributed 
to sacraments and to alms ; no merits of the holy men of 
other ages could be depended upon to make up the deficiency 
of those who sought to be saved ; no promise was held out 
that the dead might* be saved through the extraordinary 
sacrifices and benevolence of the living. The naked doc- 
trine of justification by faith in Christ stood out before the 
world ) fresh in its youthful vigour ; with no trappings or 
ornaments to hide and obscure it; a simple, solemn, sublime 
truth that all might appreciate and that might be available 
to all. This was then the sword of the spirit — slaying hu- 
man pride ; cutting down the self-righteousness of men ; 
prostrating the great and the mean, the learned and the 
unlearned, the patrician and the plebeian, the master and 
the slave, the man in purple and the man in rags, alike — 
a sword whose keenness was not rendered useless then by 
being hid in a gorgeous scabbard. 



116 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

The doctrine thus promulgated by the apostle stood op- 
posed to the prevailing views of all the world. It was 
opposed to all the aims of the Pharisees — the essential tenet 
of whose religion was expressed graphically and honestly 
by one of their own number, " God, I thank thee that I 
am not as other men are." It stood opposed to all the views 
of the Sadducees, who held to the necessity of no kind of 
religion, denying the whole doctrine of the future state. It 
stood opposed to the Essenes, the remaining Jewish sect, 
who sought to work out their salvation by extraordinary 
fastings and privations, and by exclusion from contact with 
the world. It stood opposed to the whole system of sacri- 
fices among the heathen, seeking to propitiate the gods, and 
to render themselves accepted by dependence on the forms 
of religion ; and it was at variance with all the views of 
philosophy — the pride of the Stoic, confident in his own 
righteousness ; the licentiousness of the Epicurean, justify- 
ing his own voluptuousness ; and the self-complacency of 
the sage, who relied on his own wisdom. An apostle could 
go nowhere where the doctrine would not come in conflict 
with all the prevailing views in regard to the way in which 
men might be saved. Yet no one now can be ignorant of 
the effect of this doctrine as promulgated by the apostles. 
It changed the religion of the world, for Christianity made 
no other advances than as it taught men to renounce every 
other ground of dependence and to rely for salvation solely 
on the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. It had no martial 
power by which to make its way ; it had no influence de- 
rived from name and rank to enforce its claim ; it had no 
authority derived from a venerable antiquity on which to 
rely ; it had no gorgeous and imposing forms to enable it 
to command the respect of those who had worshipped in 
the Parthenon or the Pantheon; it had no claims to any 
new discoveries in philosophy. It had but one thing that 
was new, great, improving, commanding, and that was the 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 117 

announcement of Christ crucified, and the fact that men 
everywhere might now be justified by the merits of his 
atoning blood. Never has any truth- on any subject stood 
more by itself, to make its own way without adventitious 
aid, than this did in the hands of the Christian apostles, 
and never before had any single truth on any subject pro- 
duced such changes in the world. 

(2.) The second fact, to which reference will be made, is 
the state of the world when the doctrine of justification by 
faith was obscured and almost extinguished in the Church. 
It soon began to be obscured. Very early the professed 
friends of religion began to lose sight of it. So strong in 
the human mind is the love of pomp and ceremony and 
form ) so attached is man to splendour and show in religion 
as in every thing else ; so prone is the heart to rely on its 
own doings 5 and so reluctant is the sinner everywhere to 
depend for salvation on the righteousness of another, that 
this doctrine gradually died away and almost ceased to be 
remembered in the church. Then arose the system which 
spread night all over the Christian world — the night of 
ignorance, error, superstition, and crime — a night deepening 
for ages till it terminated in the consummate depravity of 
the Papacy under Alexander VI. Under this forgetful- 
ness of the doctrine of justification by faith, or of salvation 
by simple dependence on Christ crucified, arose the univer- 
sal respect for sacred places and orders of men ; zeal for 
splendid temples of worship and for gorgeous ceremonies ; 
extraordinary veneration for the sepulchres of saints, and 
for their holy remains ; pilgrimages to the holy land ; the 
doctrine of baptismal regeneration and of absolution of sins 
by the imposition of holy hands; the belief that grace was 
imparted by sacraments administered by a priesthood ; the 
doctrine that the merits of the saints of other days were 
garnered up for the benefit of future ages and placed at the 
disposal of the Church; the multiplication of sacraments 



118 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

with saving efficacy attributed to them all, and the belief 
of a peculiar sacredness attached to ground consecrated to 
the burial of the dead. All these were features of one 
great system. They had some relation to Christianity, and 
had grown in part out of the abuse of its doctrines. But 
though various, they were arranged evidently under the 
auspices* of one master mind and with the same end in 
view. That was to render nugatory the doctrine of justifi- 
cation by faith, and to substitute in its place the doctrine of 
salvation by works. It was, indeed, salvation by works 
connected with the religion of Christ, and was a different 
system from that of the Pharisee who expected to be saved 
by conformity to the law of Moses ; or the Grecian philoso- 
pher who hoped to reach heaven by the purity of his doc- 
trine and his morals; or the degraded pagan who relied on the 
blood of his sacrifices ; or the man now who relies on his 
own honesty and fidelity in the various relations of life ; but 
it was essentially the same system. It excluded the simple 
dependence of the soul on the Lord Jesus for salvation, and 
substituted in its stead a reliance on human merit. 

The effect was seen in the darkness, sin, and corruption 
of Europe before the Reformation. Every feature. of the 
state of things in the " dark ages" can be traced to an 
obscuring of the great doctrine of justification by faith. 
Every advance of society into that deep and deepening 
gloom was connected with some loosening of its hold on 
that doctrine, and the substitution of something else in its 
place, until the hold was entirely gone, and Europe was 
plunged in total night. 

(3.) The third historical fact, therefore, to be referred to, 
is the effect which the recovery and restoration of this doc- 
trine had on the Church and the world at the period of the 
Reformation. To those who have studied the history of 
that period, as all Protestants should do, it is unnecessary 
to say that this was the elementary doctrine — the central 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 119 

view— the starting point— in the whole of that glorious 
revolution. This was the great truth that dawned on the 
mind of Luther, and which led to all that he attempted and 
accomplished for the restoration of the Church to its primi- 
tive purity, and it occupied an equally central position in 
the view of all his fellow-labourers. Three times was the 
doctrine of justification by faith brought before the mind 
of Luther, with the same sort of power which it had when 
promulgated by the apostles, and with such energy as to 
rouse all that was great in his soul into life. The first was 
when he was a monk in his cell. He had found a copy of 
the Bible, and he began to study it and to lecture on it. 
He commenced with the Psalms, but soon passed to the 
Epistle to the Romans. One day having proceeded as far 
as the seventeenth verse of the first chapter, the words 
quoted from Habakkuk— " The just shall live by faith"— 
arrested his attention. A new thought struck him. A 
new way of salvation opened before his mind. A new 
light shone upon his heart, and the words " the just shall 
live by faith" seemed never to leave him. The second in- 
stance was when he first visited Rome. These words fol- 
lowed him and lingered on his ear. One of his first im- 
pressions was that he was now in the very place to which 
Paul had addressed these words in his epistle. Yet in that 
city how were they obscured and unknown ! On every • 
hand were arrangements for being justified by works— by 
forms and ceremonies; by pomp and pageantry; by the 
merits of the saints, and by penance. What a total ob- 
scuration of the great doctrine which Paul had taught in 
the letter to the Church there, and which he had himself 
doubtless taught when he had dwelt in that city ! The 
third instance in which these words were brought to the 
heart of Luther was more impressive still. " One day 
wishing to obtain an indulgence promised by the pope to 
any one who should ascend on his knees what is called 



120 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

'Pilate's stair-case,' the poor Saxon monk was slowly 
climbing those steps which they told him had been miracu- 
lously transported from Jerusalem to Kome. But while he 
was going through this meritorious work he thought he 
heard a voice, like thunder, speaking from the depths of his 
heart, ' The just shall live ly faith.' He started up in 
terror on the steps up which he had been crawling ; he was 
horrified at himself; and, struck with shame for the degra- 
tion to which superstition had debased him, he fled from 
the scene of his folly. This powerful text had a myste- 
rious influence on the life of Luther. It was a creative 
word for the Reformer and for the Reformation."— D'Au- 
bigne. It was this truth that wrought out the Reformation : 
and whatever there was in that work that is valuable and 
precious ; whatever there was to shed a benign influence on 
literature, liberty and morals; whatever there was to spread 
pure religion over Switzerland, or Germany, or England, or 
ultimately over our own land, and 'then by a reflex influence 
on Asia Minor, on Palestine, on the palmy East, on dark 
Africa, and on the islands of the sea, is to be traced to 
those moments when this text broke with so much liv.ng 
power on the soul of Luther:-" The just shall live by 
faith " It became with him an elementary truth, that the 
doctrine of justification by faith was the "article of the 
- standing or the falling church"-the very joint or hinge 
(articulus) on which the whole depended.* To that doc- 
trine we owe, in its various developments, all that we value 
in this Protestant land, and all that distinguishes us m reli- 
gion from what Europe was in the days of Alexander VI. 
and Leo X. ; and there is not an interest of religion, liberty, 
or learning, which has not been moulded by it more than 
by any other single cause. Our modes of worship; our 
readiness to spread the Bible; our freedom of discussion; 

* " Articulm stantis vet cadxmtis ecctetiai'* 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 121 

our general diffusion of intelligence ; our untrammelled 
press ; our separation of religion from the state ; our socie- 
ties for the spread of the gospel ; our blessed and glorious 
revivals; our deliverance from superstition, and from the 
tyranny of a priesthood, and from the corruptions and 
abominations of the monastic system, and from the debase- 
ment of penance and pilgrimages, are all to be traced to the 
power of this single truth that blazed with such an intensity 
on the soul of the poor Saxon monk. Such being some of 
the facts in the case, let us, 

I. Inquire why this doctrine has this importance and 
power. This will be seen if we can trace its connection 
with what it has been undeniably everywhere united with — 
a religion of deep spirituality; of simplicity of worship; 
of deadness to the world ; of freedom of opinion ; of liberal 
views, and of great and cheerful sacrifices for the good of 
mankind. There are but two systems of religion on the 
earth : the one is that of self-righteousness ; the other that 
of salvation by the merits of Christ ; the one that of men 
who attempt, in various ways, to justify themselves before 
God; the other, that of those who seek to be justified 
through the righteousness of the Redeemer. The bearing 
and importance of the latter, in contrast with the former, is 
the point now before us. 

(1.) This doctrine of justification by faith has a power of 
reaching the soul and of calling forth every active energy 
of our nature which the other system never can have. It 
leaves the impresion that the soul is of vast value ; that 
religion is of inestimable importance ; that the grand pur- 
pose of living should be religion. The reason of this, which 
may not at once be apparent, is, that it finds the soul in such 
a state, wherever it is embraced, that it arouses all that is 
thrilling, and vast, and momentous in the soul itself, and in 
its hopes and relations. The language which the doctrine 

of justification by faith addresses to each individual is this : 

11 



122 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

" You are a lost sinner. You have no righteousness of 
your own. You never will have any. Your heart is by 
nature depraved, and your whole past life has been evil. In 
all that you have done, you have done nothing to merit the 
favour of God, or even to commend yourself to his appro- 
bation. All your righteousness is as filthy rags. All your 
outward forms of religion ; your fastings, penance, and 
vows; your amiableness of character, your honesty, your 
integrity, your pride of birth and station, are all to pass for 
nothing before God in the matter of justification. Nor can 
you hope of yourself to do any thing more in the future 
that will commend you to God than you have done in the 
past. No form of religion ; no flood of tears ; no framing 
of the life by an outward law; no acts of self-denial; no 
fastings, prayers, or almsgivings can wipe away the deep 
stains of past guilt on the soul, or constitute an expiation 
for what you have done. In this state you are near the 
grave, and just over the world of wo. A moment might 
cut you off from the land of the living, and from the pos- 
sibility of being saved. In this state you are wholly de- 
pendent on the sovereign mercy of God. You may be 
saved, but not by works of righteousness of your own. 
You may be saved, but it must be by renouncing all de- 
pendence on your own righteousness forever. You may be 
saved, but it must be wholly by the merits of another. 
Kings, sages, philosophers, priests, poets, warriors,* knights, 
senators, judges ; the gay, the accomplished, the rich, the 
poor, the vile, the bond, the free ; all lie on a level 
before God. You may be saved ; but it will only be by 
your making up the mind to a willingness to be saved in 
the same way as the vilest of the species, and to stand be- 
fore the throne clothed in the same robes of salvation that 
shall adorn the most debased and down-trodden of the 
human race. Now it is easy to conceive, even for those 
who have not experienced this, that such a religion must 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 123 

have the elements of great poioer of some kind. It can 
make its way only by sufficient power to crush the pride of 
man ; to bring down his lofty thoughts ; to humble him in 
the dust, and then by imparting life where there was none. 
There is nothing negative and tame about it. It has living 
energy through all this process. No man reaches the posi- 
tion of self-abasement and self-renunciation where this doc- 
trine finds him, without a struggle with his own pride. To 
come down there and to lie thus low before God, is the result 
of mighty power on a proud man's soul, and is no neutral 
or unmeaning thing. It is not the work of ease and of 
effeminacy, and the business of a holiday, for a man to re- 
nounce all his own righteousness, and to be willing to ac- 
knowledge, before heaven, and earth, and hell, that he is so 
great a sinner that he ought to be excluded from heaven, 
and banished from the earth and be doomed to unspeak- 
able torments forever in hell. And it is not an unmean- 
ing thing when in this state a voice from heaven bids 
him rise from the dust, and go forth a pardoned man, a 
renovated being, a child of Grod, an heir of heaven. 

Accordingly this is the doctrine which arouses the world. 
It was this which produced the commotions in the apostolic 
times, when it was said, " These that have turned the 
world upside down are come hither also." It was this 
which produced so much excitement at Jerusalem, at An- 
tioch, at Philippi. It was this which aroused Europe in the 
Reformation. It is this whose power is seen in every re- 
vival of religion. It is this whose energy is felt in the 
efforts made to carry religion around the globe. 

To illustrate what has been now said, reference may be 
made to the case of two individuals who have stated the 
effect of this doctrine on their own minds. The first is 
that of the apostle Paul. It is found in the epistle to the 
Philippians. " If any other man thinketh that he hath 
whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more : circumcised 



124 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Ben- 
jamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews ; as touching the law, 
a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; 
touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. 
But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for 
Christ. Yea doubtless, I count all things but loss for the 
excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. Chap, 
iii. 4-8. The other is a record of Luther's feelings by 
himself when he was first made to understand this doctrine. 
" Though as a monk," says he, "I was holy and irreproach- 
able, my conscience was still filled with trouble and torment. 
I could not endure the expression — ( The righteous justice 
of God/ I did not love that just and holy Being who 
punishes sinners. I felt a secret anger against him ; I 
hated him because, not satisfied with terrifying by his law 
and by the miseries of life poor creatures already ruined by 
original sin, he aggravated our sufferings by the gospel. But 
when by the Spirit of God I understood these words — when 
I learnt how the justification of the sinner proceeds from 
God's mere rnercy by the way of faith — then I felt myself 
born again as a new man, and I entered by an open door 
into the very paradise of God. From that hour I saw the 
precious and Holy Scriptures with new eyes. I went 
through the whole Bible. I collected a multitude of pas- 
sages which taught me what the work of God was. And 
as I had before heartily hated the expression, ' The right- 
eousness of God/ I began from that time to value and to 
love it as the sweetest and most consolatory truth. Truly 
this text of St. Paul was to me as the very gate of heaven." 
— D' Aubigne. 

To a soul thus lost and ruined, this doctrine always has 
this power. To others it has neither power nor beauty, nor 
can we hope that it will make its way among men except 
where the soul is deeply aroused on the subject of religion. 
Then it is what it is so often said to be in the Scriptures, 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 125 

"The power of God :" it is His mighty energy quickening 
the soul that was dead in sin to newness of life. 

(2.) The second remark illustrating its bearing and im- 
portance, will be drawn from the contrast of this doctrine 
with the opposite. It has already been observed that there 
are, in fact, but two kinds of religion on the earth, that of 
self-righteousness and that of dependence on another for 
salvation ; that in which man attempts to justify himself, 
and that in which he relies for justification on the merits of 
the Son of God. These systems divide the world; for, 
however numerous may be the methods by which men at- 
tempt to save themselves, they all have this essential 
characteristic, that they are systems of self-righteousness. 
What are the characteristics of these two systems ? What 
would be the tendency of each of them ? Let them be 
put in contrast, and what must be the effect of each of them ? 
The effect of the one — of the plan of justification by faith 
— we have already in part seen. Its obvious tendency must 
be to produce humility, penitence, gratitude, a simple re- 
liance on the Saviour, a disposition to make him all in all 
in religion. What are the effects of the opposite system ? 
They must be such as these : — 

(a) Pride. " God, I thank thee that I am not as other 
men are," is its language all over the world. 

(b) A multiplication of forms, and a reliance on them. 
Religion becomes an outward thing, not a work of the 
heart. So it was with the Pharisees, the Greeks, the Ro- 
mans ) so it is now in the pagan world, among Moham- 
medans, and in all the perverted forms of Christianity. It 
matters little what the outward form is ; but where the doc- 
trine of justification is obscured or unknown, religion must 
degenerate into heartless forms. It makes up for its want 
of vital power by the multiplication of rites and ceremonies. 
It adds a new ceremony for every step of departure from 

11* 



126 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

the doctrine of justification by faith ; it. attaches an addi- 
tional sacredness to them as this doctrine is obscured, and 
where this is wholly lost out of view, religion becomes 
merely a punctilious performance of imposing rites, a care- 
ful observance of forms. A man, when he thinks of death 
and the judgment, must have some righteousness on which 
to rely. If it be not that of the Saviour, and if it be the 
pretence of religion at all, it must be that consisting of a 
sacred reverence for forms. 

(c) The denial of the doctrine of justification by faith 
will be always attended with superstition. There will be 
an attempt to merit heaven by reverencing dead men's 
bones, by pilgrimages, by bodily torture, by seclusion from 
the world, by garnishing the sepulchres of the righteous, 
and by imploring the intercession of departed saints. The 
world must make up its mind to have the doctrine of justi- 
fication by faith held in its purity, or to have a religion of 
superstition substituted in its place. One or the other has 
prevailed always ; one has always excluded the other ; the 
suppression of the one has been the occasion of the intro- 
duction of the other; and one or the other will live to the 
end of time. The question is now before this country 
whether we shall cling to the great doctrine of justification 
by faith, or whether we shall go abroad and import all the 
superstitions of heathenism, whether original or baptized 
at Rome; whether we shall adhere to the grand truth which 
was the element in the Reformation, or take Christianity, 
so called, as it was in the days of Alexander VI. and Leo X. 

(cl) The system which denies this doctrine has been, from 
some cause, an exclusive and a persecuting system. To 
whatever this fact may be traced, of the fact itself there 
can be no doubt. The history of the world has confirmed 
it, and that history has taught us that if we would be free 
from the evils of an exclusive and a persecuting system, we 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 127 

i 

must hold in its simplicity and its purity the great doctrine 
of justification by faith. 

(3.) A third thing illustrating its bearing and import- 
ance, is the fact that it is connected with freedom of thought 
and the advancement of society. The fact here is more 
apparent than the reason of it. No one acquainted with 
history will dispute the fact that the doctrine of justification 
by faith has been held with the most simplicity and purity 
in the times when freedom of thought has most prevailed 
and in the lands most characterized for it. And no one 
can doubt that the denial of the doctrine, and the denial of 
the right of free inquiry, have gone together. It was the 
same system, which denied by all its arrangements the doc- 
trine of justification by faith, which imprisoned Galileo. 
The Inquisition grew up in lands where this doctrine was 
denied, and has flourished there only, and could live no- 
where else. The proclamation of this doctrine in Europe 
by Luther and his fellow-labourers unfettered the human 
mind and abolished the Inquisition; and nothing can be 
clearer than that no circumstances could ever arise in any 
land in which the doctrine of justification by simple faith 
in Christ is held in which such an institution could be esta- 
blished ; and we may be certain that, as long as we can assert 
this doctrine in its purity throughout all our borders, we 
shall be free from thumb-screws, and racks, and auto-da-fes, 
and dark dungeons made to incarcerate the advocate of any 
religious belief. Whatever else we may be subjected to, 
this doctrine will be a palladium to us, not fabled as was 
the image of Minerva, but a reality to secure for us the 
protection of heaven. 

The reasons of the fact which is now adverted to, would 
be found in such considerations as these : — That in this 
doctrine there is nothing which we wish to conceal ; that it 
depends for its support on nothing which may not be fully 



128 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

examined; that it recognises everywhere the equality of 
men ; that it asks no patronage from the state ; that it 
relies for its advancement on its own simple power as truth — 
as commending itself to the conscience and the reason of 
mankind, and as finding a response in the soul of every 
man who feels that he is a sinner. The support of the 
other system is to be found in just the opposite of these 
things. It cloaks itself in mystery. It seeks to establish 
the claims of a priesthood composed of a superior order of men, 
and this must be done on arguments that will not bear the 
light. It is, and must be sustained by the power of the state. 
It loves a religion of blind believing rather than of reasoning. 
It is identified with all that human ingenuity can devise to 
substitute a righteousness in the place of that by faith in 
the Saviour. It is identified with interest — where the pro- 
curing of absolution becomes a matter of bargain and sale. 
And it is conscious that the free examination of its claims 
would show how baseless is the fabric on which it stands, 
and the worthlessness of all the devices which have been 
originated to enable man to work out a righteousness of his 
own. Without pursuing these thoughts further, one other 
remark may be added. It is 

(4.) That the doctrine of justification by faith is con- 
nected with liberality in religion. We have seen what is 
the character, in this respect, of the opposite system. It 
is essential to every other system that it be illiberal and 
exclusive. The reason is this. According to every such 
system, grace is conveyed only through a certain chan- 
nel. There are certain men who alone are appointed to 
dispense it; it is to be obtained only in union with a 
certain ecclesiastical connection, and in the performance 
of certain specified rites and ceremonies. But none of 
these things are essential to the doctrine of justification 
by faith. It is a direct concern between the soul and its 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 129 

Saviour. It practically removes every human being from 
any participation in obtaining for the sinner the favour of 
God. However the ministers of religion may have been 
instrumental in arousing the attention of the soul to its 
guilt and danger, or in pointing the way to the cross, yet 
the transaction is one where all foreign agency and all 
human holiness of office are excluded. It is not essential 
whether the minister officiates with or without a surplice; 
whether in a plain " meeting-house" or a magnificent cathe- 
dral; whether he can trace his commission through the 
apostolic succession or not; whether his doctrines can or 
cannot be sustained by synods and councils ; nay, whether 
there be any minister of religion at all, for the soul may be 
justified by simple faith in the Lord Jesus. The worship- 
per may be a Cameronian on the hills of Scotland under the 
open heaven ; or a man who has strayed somehow into a 
conventicle ; or a wandering savage who is made to listen, 
to attend, to be enraptured, till his eyes pour forth tears 
under the preaching of some humble missionary on whose 
head the hands of a mitred prelate have never been laid, 
and there shall be all the elements of the doctrine of justi- 
fication. What has occurred to him on the hills, or in the 
woods, or in a school-house, or in a church, he feels may 
occur anywhere else in the same way. It will not become 
then essential to his view that the doctrines of religion 
should be preached on a hill, or in a valley ; that the minis- 
ter stands in front of a tent, or that he ministers at a cer- 
tain altar ; it will not be essential that he wear a certain 
vestment, or be able to trace his spiritual genealogy back to 
far distant times, — what he wishes to know is whether a 
man has experienced in his own soul what he has in his — the 
power of the doctrine of justification by faith in the blood of 
Jesus. If he has, that is enough. It is to him a ques- 
tion of comparatively no moment whether he thinks that 



130 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

baptism by immersion is the only method ; or whether he 
regards John Wesley as the greatest and the best of men ; or 
whether he believes that all human wisdom was embodied in 
the Westminster Assembly of divines ; or whether he thinks 
that the ministry exists only in three orders. All these 
will be comparative trifles. The grand matter is, that the 
lost and guilty soul is justified by the blood of the " everlast- 
ing covenant •" and that settles every thing that is truly 
valuable in his view in regard to the salvation of the soul. 
Such a system, it is clear, must be essentially liberal. It 
cannot be a system which will be primarily concerned in 
" questions and strifes of words" about the externals of 
religion. It will recognise in every man, who has ever felt 
the efficacy of the blood of Christ, a Christian brother. It 
will regard all men by nature as essentially on the same 
level in reference to salvation. There will be, in the mat- 
ter of religion, no favoured class, no holy order ; none, by 
nature, nearer heaven than others, and none who shall have 
a right to prescribe to others what they are to believe or to 
do. One point — one grand doctrine distinguishes them, no 
matter of what sect, or country, or complexion, they may 
be — that they are redeemed by the blood of the same Sa- 
viour. They are of the same family. They have the same 
rights in the kingdom of grace. No one has a right, in 
virtue of blood, or name, or connection with outward forms 
of religion, to claim a superior nearness to heaven; nor, if 
the soul is justified by the blood of Jesus, has he the 
right or the disposition to withhold the name of Christian, 
or to say that a soul thus justified is left to "the uncove- 
nanted mercies of God." 

The doctrine which has been considered constitutes the 
peculiarity of the Protestant religion. Protestantism began 
in the restoration of the doctrine of justification by faith. 
This, more than any thing else, distinguishes the system. 



HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 131 

All there 'is of Protestantism that is of value is in this doc- 
trine ; and all that we have of liberality in religion, and 
freedom from persecution, and purity of doctrine, is to be 
traced to this. 

The whole discussion on the doctrine of justification may 
be closed by a personal appeal to those who may read this 
tract. There are but two ways conceivable on which you 
can be saved. One is, on the ground of your own right- 
eousness; the other is, on the ground of the righteousness 
of the Lord Jesus. There is no middle way conceivable. 
It is the grand question, then, and one in which every indi- 
vidual has the deepest interest, What is the ground of 
your reliance ? On which of these do you depend when 
you think of being admitted to heaven ? If you rely on 
the former — on your own righteousness — it must be either 
because you can disprove the facts which are charged on 
you as sin, or because, if the facts are undeniable, you will 
be able to vindicate your conduct before the bar of the 
Almighty. Here, then, it may be solemnly asked, whether 
you are willing to rest your souPs interests on such a founda- 
tion ? Are you prepared to abide the issue of such a trial ? 
Can you calmly look forward to such an investigation of 
your life before God's bar, and feel secure when you think 
of the tremendous interests of the soul that are at stake ? 
Are you prepared to go up to meet your Maker with the 
feeling that your only hope there is self-vindication ? It 
may be permitted to the writer of this tract, in view of 
these reasonings, and of the truths that have been suggested, 
and in view also of the solemn fact that he, like those whom 
he addresses, is soon to stand before the tribunal where all 
will be judged, to say, " I am not. I turn to the other 
system which I have endeavoured to set before you. I look 
away from all that I have done — the miserable rags of my 
own righteousness — to the white robe of salvation wrought 



132 HOW SHALL MAN BE JUST WITH GOD? 

out by my great Redeemer, and seek to wrap that robe around 
my guilty soul, and I feel that if justified by faith in his 
blood I shall be safe/' 

A guilty, weak, and helpless worm, 

On thy kind arms I fall ; 
Be thou my strength and righteousness, 

My Saviour and my all. 



I 



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